Robert Barry

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Barry (born March 9, 1936 in New York City , USA ) is an American conceptual artist . Robert Barry is one of the protagonists of American conceptual art.

life and work

Robert Barry studied at Hunter College of the City University of New York .

Robert Barry began working as a painter at the beginning of his artistic career. He dealt with the investigation of the relationship between surface and space and between positive and negative from an early age. He also deals with present and absent forms and the addition of empty forms by the viewer of the work. Since 1967 he has been working with immaterial works of art, installations and performance art and with a variety of otherwise invisible media.

He created spatial installations with wires and transparent nylon threads . He carried out actions with noble gases (" Inert Gas Series ") or radioactive material (" Radiation Pieces ") and worked with acoustic frequencies, noises and language. For one action, gas bottles were used in various settings in front of groups of spectators in the desert.

" Nothing seems to me the most potent thing in the world. " Barry's work focuses on the escape from the previously known physical limits of the objects and on the various possibilities for defining the invisible space around the objects instead of the objects themselves.

For example, Barry also used inaudible radio waves from a transmitter for a prescribed period of time " not as a means of conveying information, but rather as an object itself " in an exhibition at the Siegelaub Gallery in New York.

Robert Barry was a participant in Documenta 5 in Kassel in 1972 in the Light + Light / Idea department and also represented works at Documenta 6 (1977) and Documenta 7 in 1982. He lives in Teaneck , New Jersey .

Literature and Sources

  • Peter Lodermeyer, Karlyn De Jongh & Sarah Gold, Personal Structures: Time Space Existence, DuMont Verlag, Cologne, Germany, 2009.
  • Exhibition catalog: documenta 5. Survey of Reality - Imagery Today ; Catalog (as a file folder) Volume 1: (Material); Volume 2: (list of exhibits); Kassel 1972
  • documenta archive (ed.); Resubmission d5 - A survey of the archive on documenta 1972 ; Kassel / Ostfildern 2001, ISBN 3-7757-1121-X
  • Catalog for documenta 6: Volume 1: Painting, sculpture / environment, performance; Volume 2: photography, film, video; Volume 3: Hand drawings, utopian design, books; Kassel 1977 ISBN 3-920453-00-X
  • Catalog: documenta 7 Kassel ; Vol. 1: (visual biographies of the artists); Vol. 2: (Current works of the artists); Kassel 1982 ISBN 3-920453-02-6

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Barry, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American concept artist
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City