Artist Profile V


	Artist Profiles


	September / Uta Barth - Blurred Reality


	Uta Barth was born in 1958 in Berlin, Germany and currently lives in Los Angeles, California. Her work is represented by the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York, and ACME in Los Angeles. Her photographs have been included in group shows at the Whitney and Guggenheim museums in New York, the Tate Modern Museum in London and the J. Paul Getty Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. In addition to several solo exhibitions, her work has been shown throughout the world including Japan, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Spain and Brazil as well as throughout the United States. (Images are courtesy of Uta Barth, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, and ACME, Los Angeles.)


	Uta Barth is a photographer who is self-possessed of a sensibility that has much in common with abstract painting. In viewing her art it is, at times, pleasantly difficult to keep in mind that she is a photographer. However, despite the blurred focus technique, most of the subject matter is more or less recognizable and so objective reality is never completely abandoned. What helps in imagining these photographs as paintings is their overt subjectivity as informed by the treatment of the subject matter. This clash between objective and subjective realities and how the latter ultimately wins out is crucial for understanding this work.

	The place to begin is with Barth�s methodology of throwing the subject matter out of focus. In most of the work this is applied overall and in lesser hands would quickly dissolve into a tiresome gimmick. However, Barth is masterful in the variety and intelligent approach she


			Ground (95.6), 1995, Color photograph on panel, Edition of 8, 20 x 17 inches



				Field #19, 1996, Color photograph on panel, Edition of 8, 23 x 28 3/4 inches

		applies to it. Take for example Ground (95.6) where a group of leaves in the upper right corner retains sharp focus but everything else is considerably blurred. On one hand the combination creates an ambiguous sense of space. The undefined horizon in the background could be miles or meters away. On the other, because everything but the leaves is out of focus the background is evenly flattened out. The result is to challenge the depth of space so that the leaves and background appear to occupy nearly the same place on the picture plane. Yet intellectually you know this is not true and are left to reconcile the visual contradictions. This simultaneous push-pull of space bears some similarity to what Cézanne achieved; particularly in his landscape paintings.

	Another significant aspect to Barth�s photography is the way in which she trains her camera on what initially appears as empty space. What little imagery does appear is rendered to the periphery and this supports

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