Judith Barry

Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary Arts is pleased to announce artist Judith Barry as the Audain Visual Artist in Residence in February 2015.

Barry’s photographic and video works from the 1980’s and 90’s were formative in their engagement with gender issues, film theory, perceptual processes, media and architecture. Barry had an early interest in exhibition design and media art, designing the exhibition From Receiver to Remote Control (with Ken Saylor) for the New Museum, New York, in 1990. In 2010, an updated version of the research was presented as From Receiver to Remote…channelling Spain (with Ken Saylor and Projects Projects), which focused on the differences and similarities in television history between Spain and the US in relation to ‘participatory democracy’.  First person accounts and the personal, social and political functions of the voice are an ongoing interest in Barry’s work. From 2003 to 2011 she conducted over 200 interviews with women in Cairo, Egypt, and these resulted in her video and photographic installation …Cairo stories.

During her time in Vancouver, Barry will do a public presentation of her work and discuss her approaches to art, exhibition design and the relationship between an image and its spatial representation. In conjunction with faculty member Sabine Bitter, Barry will work with third-year visual art students as they conceptualize and organize the annual student exhibition in the street-front Audain Gallery. This seminar and workshop enables students to work with this Kiesler-prize winning artist to devise their exhibition and to gain exposure to Barry's ideas about critically informed exhibition-making. 

Judith Barry is an artist and writer trained in architecture, art, literature, film theory and computer graphics and whose work crosses a number of disciplines: performance, installation, sculpture, architecture, photography and new media. She has exhibited internationally in a range of venues and contexts including Documenta XIII, the Berlin Biennale, Venice Biennale(s) of Art/Architecture, Sharjah Biennial, Sao Paolo Biennale, Nagoya Biennale, Carnegie International, Whitney Biennale, and the Sydney Biennale, among others. In 2000 she won the Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts, and in 2001 she was awarded "Best Pavilion" at the Cairo Biennale. A major survey of her work was mounted at DA2 Salamanca, Spain, 2008 and Berardo Museum, Lisbon, 2010. She is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient. Recent exhibitions include Theatrical Fields, CCA, Singapore, …Cairo stories, Slought, Philadelphia (solo), …Cairo stories, Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Los Angeles (solo), Take It Or Leave It, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and Americana, Perez Miami Art Museum, Miami, all in 2014. Her work is represented in the collections of MoMA, Whitney Museum, DIA Foundation, Generali Foundation, Mumok, Centre Pompidou, La Caixa, MACBA, FRAC Lorraine, Goetz Collection, among many others.

Barry also writes critical essays and fiction and has several publications, including Public Fantasy, a collection essays published by the ICA in London (1991). The monograph Body without Limits, was published in 2009 and features several essays considering Barry’s work. Her work is included in the collection of MoMA, NYC, Whitney Museum, NYC, Generali Foundation, Vienna, MCA, San Diego, Pompidou Center, Paris, Le Caixa, Barcelona, MACBA, Barcelona, FNAC, Paris, Goetz collection, Munich, Frac Lorraine, Metz, and CIFO, Miami among others. She has taught and lectured extensively in the USA, Asia and Europe. Currently, Judith Barry is Professor/Director of the MFA VA at Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge, MA.

Events

Judith Barry, Artist Talk

Tuesday, February 24, 2015 1:00 PM  |  FREE
Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre
SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
149 W. Hastings Street, Vancouver