Andrei Barov

Andrej Barov (born October 6, 1958 in Leningrad ) is a German photo artist. The examination of the latest findings in brain research is central to his work . Barov is considered to be the founder of Brain Art.

Life

Andrej Barov studied theater studies and art history at the Leningrad Academy of Theater, Film and Music. During his ten-year engagement at the Lenfilm feature film studio , the artist traveled across Russia and shot films of all stripes in various locations. This time provided extensive insights into the regionally highly diversified Russian culture and everyday life in the USSR. At the end of the 80s, Andrej Barov also began to deal intensively with photography as an art form.

Andrej Barov fled his Russian homeland to Germany in 1988. Since then, Germany has been the center of life of the artist, who since the mid-1990s has been particularly concerned with the new possibilities of digital image processing and computer animation in combination with the latest research findings on the handling of perceptual processes in the brain.

Brain Art

Andrej Barov's works of art do not want to reveal the manipulability of digital images, rather they show how every form of image can manipulate the viewer. The artist allows the latest findings in brain research to flow into his work and can be directly experienced by the viewer. The possibilities of digital image processing are only a means of visualizing translation processes that run on a computer in a similar way as in the human brain. Barov does not intend to enter the field of digital art. His critical gesture is directed towards visual culture as such, it seeks to create awareness of our unconscious hypotheses about the world.

The focus of his work is therefore not on the exploration of the virtuality of images, but rather on the intention of bringing their indisputable power and effect to the viewer in the non-purpose-oriented free space of art. Barov questions the human self-image in terms of an ideology that has faltered. Are we really still masters of our own house? The doubt about the freedom of human will that we encounter in the media as a result of brain research is visualized through his abstract images based on concrete templates. They confront the viewer with the question of how his perception process actually takes place. Brain Art is an art about people and their relationship to the environment.

The most important result of these studies to date was presented in 2005 in the Munich Museum for Casts of Classical Image Works in the Color Matrix exhibition, which was conceived in collaboration with Brian Eno. Eno created sound installations in response to Barov's work.

Works

Work series exist with the following titles, among others: Beatuy Matrix Operation, Stardust, Colors of Fragrance, Thirst Quenchers and Brainwashing. Barov uses well-known motifs from the media and consumer world and subjects them to a digital abstraction process, so that the motif can no longer be recognized on the finished work.

In this way, Barov reflects on the functioning of our perceptual apparatus and on its manipulability, as pursued by industrial marketing strategies.

Exhibitions

• 2008 “Colorful Encounter: Color Versions of Ancient Greek and Chinese Sculpture in Comparison” Special exhibition of the Museum for Casts of Classical Art, Munich. New edition of the installation in the north atrium (until the end of August 08)
• 2007 Human Systems, BurdaYukom, Munich
• 2005 "Color Matrix", Andrej Barov, Brian Eno. Special exhibition of the Museum for Casts of Classical Sculptures, Munich
• 2005 "Wraps" - on the occasion of the special exhibition "Colorful Gods - The Colors of Ancient Sculpture", Sculpture Hall Basel
• 2005 “Colors of Fragrance” - on the occasion of the special exhibition “Perfume Aesthetics and Seduction” in the Museum of Art and Industry, Hamburg
• 2004 "Perceptions", Kodak Photokina 2004
• 2004 "Art drinks in the city", Cologne (Art Cologne)
• 2003 “Living dreams - living spaces”, Museum of Design, Zurich
• 1997 “Cabinet - St. Petersburg Tendencies”, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
• 1996 “Current Art from Saint Petersburg”, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe
• 1993 European Photography Award
• 1992 Munich Photo Museum in the City Museum

Web links

• Official Andrej Barov website
• Color Matrix exhibition in the Museum for Casts of Classical Sculptures