Uta Barth (born 1958) is a contemporary German-American photographer whose work addresses themes such as perception, optical illusion and non-place. Her early work emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s, "inverting the notion of background and foreground" in photography and bringing awareness to a viewer's attention to visual information with in the photographic frame. Her work is as much about vision and perception as it is about the failure to see, the faith humans place in the mechanics of perception, and the precarious nature of perceptual habits. Barth's says this about her art practice: “The question for me always is how can I make you aware of your own looking, instead of losing your attention to thoughts about what it is that you are looking at." in 2004‑05, and was a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. Barth lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Early years and education

Barth was born in Berlin, Germany in 1958. Growing up in Europe gave Barth a different cultural perspective. Her memory of West Berlin is "dark and austere" and she left for the United States before the Berlin wall was taken down in 1989. During early adolescence her father began a research project in the U.S. at Stanford University and she moved to the U.S. shortly after. Barth was 12 years old and did not know English when she arrived in the United States. The shift from cold-war Germany to 1970s California was a culture shock for Barth.

Work

Early work: late 1980s & early 1990s

In 1989 Barth's work was black and white, multi-paneled photographic and painted images mounted on wood that addressed the psychodynamics of vision, using optic patterns, repetitious visual metaphors for the eye, and diagrams related to light and human vision. Barth made the images by photographing generic locations outdoors as if she was shooting a formal portrait but removed the subject of the portrait in focus and left the out-of-focus background behind. Barth's gesture reverses the typical use of the camera, shooting something out of focus instead of something in-focus. As a result, she photographs unoccupied space. Barth was thinking about stock photography while making this body of work, picturing backdrops for family photos and portrait photography from the 1960s and 1970s.

Late 1990s

In 1998 Barth begins another series of Untitled works, including Untitled (98.4) and Untitled (98.6). Here, Barth begins to focus on sequencing in the gallery again, grouping images together in diptychs, triptychs and clusters. The work plays on the idea of multiple points of view or the experience of a visual double-take where a detail catches the viewer long enough to take a second image, a second look. She made hundreds of images that contain moments of framing, records the ebb and flow of light and captures the change of the seasons. This body of work deals with the duration of looking and the prolonged engagement with "seeing" nothing. The series of work …and of time is the inverse series about the same window found in nowhere near. The images depict the light falling through the window, repeating grid like reflections of light that bounce and illuminate onto the wall and floor of Barth's living room. "The window becomes the aperture of the house and light and imagery project through it," Barth's says. an art critic for the Los Angeles Times wrote in reference to the work. Optical illusion occurs, as the viewer walks through the sequencing of tree branches and interrupting red and yellow color panels interspersed throughout the photographic imagery, creating afterimages that strike the viewers eyes.

...and to draw a bright white line with light (2011)

This series of work was commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and marks a turn in Barth's work. In this series, Barth's intervention of her own body parts into the photographic frame to position the subject of the photograph is made visible. The viewer can identify Barth's arm or arm's shadow, as she creates the lines of light the camera captures in the series of photographs. This more recent work embodies Barth's idea of her own personal intervention into the space that she photographs. In previous series she aimed to spark observation and a sense of visual perception in the work. "Perhaps I have just discovered a way to make marks with light that fits into my ongoing practice," Barth's explains about the series in an interview with Art in America. This interview was in conjunction with a show Barth's had on view at gallery 1301PE in Los Angeles in September–October 2011. …and to draw a bright white line with light was shown at the Art Institute of Chicago May 14–August 16, 2011, as well as at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York in October–December 2011.

Collaborations

The Getty Museum commissioned eleven Los Angeles Artists for a collaborative exhibition titled Departures: 11 Artists at the Getty and Uta Barth was invited to participate. The exhibition was open to the public from February 29, 2000 through May 7, 2000. Each artist was commissioned to create works in response to art in the Getty's collection. Exhibition curator Lisa Lyons said, "Departures is intended to explore the potent and sometimes surprising ways in which the art of the past can inform contemporary art. Equally important, the new works produced for the exhibition will offer valuable insights into the Getty collections." The press release The titled of the exhibition was "At the Window: A Photographer’s View” and also included Gregory Crewdson and Yuki Onodera. Barth showed work from ‘nowhere near’ and ‘…and of time.’ This show articulates a theme and motif throughout Barth's work: the window. In an interview with the artists in the show, Barth's says, “The window is a wonderful vehicle for referring to the act of looking.”

"Uta Barth: Peripheral Vision", a large retrospective of her work, was shown at The Getty Center in 2022.

Barth's work is represented in numerous public and private collections worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and Bilbao, Spain; The Tate Modern, London; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among others.

Monographs

  • 2012 – Uta Barth. ... to draw with light. Blind Spot, New York.
  • 2010 – Uta Barth: The Long Now. Greg R. Miller & Co., New York. Essays by Jonathan Crary, Russell Ferguson, and Holly Myers.
  • 2006 – Uta Barth 2006: Just Spanning Time. Essay by Cheryl Kaplan Exh. cat. Minneapolis: Franklin Art Works.
  • 2004 – Uta Barth: white blind (bright red). Santa Fe: SITE Santa Fe. Essay by Jan Tumlir.
  • 2004 – Uta Barth. London: Phaidon Press. Essays by Uta Barth, Pamela Lee, and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe; interview with Matthew Higgs; and selected writings by Joan Didion.
  • 2000 – Uta Barth: ... and of time. Artist's book. Essay by Timothy Martin. Published in conjunction with a project commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, for the exhibition "Departures: 11 Artists".
  • 2000 – At the Edge of the Decipherable: Recent Photographs by Uta Barth. 2nd ed. Essay by Elizabeth A. T. Smith. Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art and St. Ann's Press.
  • 2000 – Uta Barth: In Between Places. Seattle: Henry Art Gallery and University of Washington. Essays by Sheryl Conkelton, Russell Ferguson, and Timothy Martin.
  • 1999 – Uta Barth: nowhere near. Artist's book. Essay by Jan Tumlir. Published in conjunction with a three-part exhibition project by the same name at ACME., Los Angeles; Bonakdar Jancou Gallery, New York; and Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm.
  • 1999 – Uta Barth: nowhere near. Exh. brochure. Overland Park, Kansas: Johnson County Community College Art Gallery. Text by Jan Tumlir.
  • 1995 – At the Edge of the Decipherable: Recent Photographs by Uta Barth. Essay by Elizabeth A. T. Smith. Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art.

Selected grants and fellowships

  • 2012 MacArthur Fellowship

See also

  • List of German women artists

References

  • Uta Barth – Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
  • Uta Barth – 1301PE Gallery, Los Angeles
  • Uta Barth - Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm - Paris
  • Full official resume
  • Gregory R. Miller & Co. : Uta Barth: The Long Now