1301PE is pleased to announce itʼs second exhibition with internationally renowned artist Uta Barth. Since the early 1990ʼs, Barth has made visual perception the primary content of her work. The Ground and Field series brought her to international attention and this attention has continued as each of the following projects presented observations about human perception in ever changing ways. Unlike most photography, which seeks out a central subject, Barth has made what she calls "the choice of no choice" and confined her practice to the ambient, the peripheral, incidental and ephemeral. Her images trace light, time and optical afterimages and they aim to ask us to become invested and conscious of our own perceptual awareness.
For this exhibition Barth will show a body of work commissioned this year by The Art Institute of Chicago, titled ... and to draw a bright white line with light. Unlike all previous work, she no longer is merely the observer, but here she interacts with the scene. The word "photography" translates as "drawing or writing with light". Barth does precisely that as she draws the curtain in order to manipulate the growing line of sunlight into various configurations, thereby transforming a simple observation into a complex photographic project, describing perception, light and the passage of time.
This exhibition will also premier Barthʼs partner project to ... and to draw a bright white line with light. Compositions of Light on White uses the manipulation of horizontal blinds in a different room, to form barely perceptible Mondrian-like geometric compositions made purely of light. This is the first work in over ten years to exist as a collection of single images, instead of the multi-panel sequences for which Barth is known. These two bodies of work eloquently trace the passage of time.
Uta Barth was born in Berlin, Germany. She lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and has exhibited internationally at numerous institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, MCA, Chicago, and Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul. Her work is held in several important public collections including Tate Modern, London, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
