 Jill and Polly in the Bathroom, 1987 courtesy Tina Barney/Janet Borden Inc., NY Tina Barney The Europeans This is the first major solo exhibition of the completed series "The Europeans" by acclaimed contemporary photographer Tina Barney. The exhibition will feature around 50 photographs from this series, including some never previously exhibited images which includes her Spanish, German and French studies. On show is also a selection of photographs from her well known series of American photographs from the 1980s and early 1990s. Barney first made her reputation in the early 1980s with these large format photographs, which featured members of her own family or those of close friends, in their apartments on Manhattan's Upper East Side, or at their summer homes on Rhode Island. In "The Europeans", (1996 -2004), Barney continues to focuses on a specific section of society, however, while many of the artist's American works depict her own family and friends, her European images are of acquaintances she met through a series of personal introductions in Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, France and England. In these photographs Barney plays with the traditional notion of portraiture in an attempt to capture different aspects of each nationality, as well as to continue her investigation into what constitutes a family. Central to Barney's photographs is also the intricate way in which she combines colour, light, pattern and setting with the figures, to create a dense web of associations. This approach also positions her photographs in an interesting dialogue with paintings, especially oil paintings, as do their scale. When discussing Barney's use of symbolism as well as her use of either single figure, double portrait or group of three, references can be made to grand historical paintings, or portraits commissioned by the wealthy of the day, to commemorate and confirm their position in society. Parallels can also be drawn between Barney's use of colour, light and pattern for decorative effect as well as representations of human emotions with paintings, such as those by the French painters, Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) and Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940). Her approach of collaborating with her subjects in re-staging a specific moment and her use of a large format camera, tripod and artificial light precludes spontaneity and demands premeditated arrangement of the composition, although she does still allow a certain degree of chance to enter her work. This process enables Barney to achieve images of incredible detail and saturation of colour, as well as creating a sense of tension, theatricality and poignancy in her work. Since the beginning of her photographic career, Barney's approach to photography and her work has been influential within the shift that has occurred in photography during the latter half of the twentieth century; a shift that has seen artists playing with the boundaries between what is believed to be real and spontaneous in contrast to that which is artificial and staged. Tina Barney was born in 1945 in New York, where she has been based for most of her life. A self-taught photographer, she began taking photographs in the mid-1970s. Having undertaken some editorial photography, Barney developed her independent career from the early 1980s. Her work is in major collections and she has exhibited in numerous exhibitions. Most recently she has exhibited in the group exhibitions "Settings and Players", White Cube, London, 2001, "Stepping in and Out", Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2002-03 and "Fashioning Fiction in Photography since 1990", Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2004. A book on "The Europeans" will be published by Steidl to accompany to exhibition. Exhibition: 17 February - 2 May 2005 Gallery hours: Daily 11 am - 8 pm, Tue/Thur 11 am - 6 pm Barbican Art Gallery Silk Street GB-London EC2Y 8DS Telephone 0845 121 6828 (Box Office) www.barbican.org.uk |
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