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28/5/2008

Uta Barth

Alison Jacques Gallery, London

"What I am looking at is subtle information, as it is being erased, as it disappears from view, disappears from the world. It is the last moment when all the illuminated imagery of our world gets put to rest. It has a certain stillness I chase down in all my work. Everything is rooted in vision, in submerging oneself in this spectacular visual event that projects itself all around me at the end of each day."

Uta Barth in conversation with David Horvitz, ANPQuarterly, No.9, 2007 Alison Jacques Gallery is pleased to present Sundial, Uta Barth's new series of work. This collection of images was selected from a larger number photographed in the artist's home over a period of several months and detail the varying qualities of sun light as it moves throughout the house at the last hours of the day. The chosen photographs were primarily taken at dusk, when the play of light began to erase itself from the walls and objects of the interior space. The provocative allure of these images lies in the fact that they simultaneously evoke a sense of stillness and slow continual movement.

The use of the repeated subject in this and previous series of works allows both the artist and the viewer the chance to explore duration through subtle details that might otherwise be missed. Rather than dealing with subjects or narratives, Barth's photographs explore visual perception itself, and how meaning is located in the activity of looking. In this way the artist uses the camera as a metaphor for human consciousness or the mind. Barth's use of after-images reinforces the primary importance of the optical experience. By rendering the phenomenon whereby we retain a lasting impression in our eyes after staring at a brightly lit scene Barth moves beyond the realm of what is possible to attain solely with a camera. Working in this way allows the artist to express space as simultaneously positive and negative, which adds further complexity to her compositions.

Barth began photographing interior spaces in 1994 and since that time the ways in which she frames her compositions has become increasingly important. By withholding visual information through cropping, and eschewing a central compositional focus, the artist creates an ambiguous sense of depth. Barth's subsequent arrangements of images mimic the multi focusing and constantly adjusting function of the eye and demonstrate the permeability of internal and exterior space. The artist's project continues a line of Phenomenological enquiry that seeks to provide a direct description of human experience. By treating the interior of her own home as a sundial Barth emphasises how consciousness, the world, and the perceiving body are intertwined. Sundial reverses traditional expectations of the photographic medium through inverting the world outside the room into a projection within it.

Uta Barth (Born Berlin,1958) lives and works in Los Angeles. Solo museum exhibitions include MCA, Chicago (1995) and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (1989). A mid-career survey of Barth's work was presented by the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle and the MCA in Houston in 2000. Barth's work has been acquired by major public collections including Tate, London; MoMA, New York; The Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. She is the recipient of the 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2007 USA Artist award.

Opening may 29, 2008

Alison Jacques Gallery
16-18 Berners Street - London
Free admission

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