Art and Time | Media

Guest Lecture: Judith Barry

What makes today’s new media so diverse, so compelling ?

FR 14.04.2006 | 2pm
KDM – Ordinariat für Kunst und digitale Medien
Semperdepot 1. Stock – Medienklasse (I27)
Atelierhaus, Lehargasse 6 – 8, 1060 Wien

Presentation of works by Judith Barry
Judith Barry in conversation with Constanze Ruhm

This presentation by New York – based artist Judith Barry will explore the question of the role of New Media in regard of a contemporary art context and practice, with a specific focus on some of the artist’s productions from the past three decades. Barry’s methodology covers a variety of different media ranging from performance through video, installation and web-based works.

Originally trained as an architect, her work has often dealt with media, yet she does not consider herself a “media” artist. Rather, she has employed media within her artistic practice to elucidate and explore a variety of questions in relationship to a broad range of contemporary subject matters.

Works included in the presentation:

-Performances (“pastpresentfuturetense”, 1977) including sound pieces and early punk pieces (“They Agape”, 1978)
-Early architecture / art interventions (“Museum of Signs”, 1980)
-Site-specific works (“First and Third”, 1987 / “Carnegie Memory Theater
-Card Piece”, 1989 / “Work of Forest”, 1991)
-Installation works
-Single channel video (“Casual Shopper”, 1980/81)
-MTV commissions
-Early installation pieces (“In the Shadow…”, 1982-85)
-Post-conceptual works (“Tear in the Green Book”, “Au bout des levres”)

Judith Barry is an artist an writer whose work crosses a number of disciplines: performance, installation, sculpture, architecture, photography, new media and exhibition design. She has exhibited internationally at such venues as the Berlin Biennial, Venice Bienniale(s) of Art/Architecture, Sao Paolo Biennial, Nagoya Biennial, Cairo Biennial, Carnegie International, Whitney Biennial, Sydney Biennial, and INsite, among others. In 2000, she won the Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts” and in 2001 she was awarded “Best Pavilion” and “Audience Award” at the Cairo Biennial. Currently, she is working on a book about art and technology, several installation projects and two web-based works. PUBLIC FANTASY, a collection of Barry’s essays, was published by the ICA London, edited by Iwona Blazwick (1991). Recent publications include: PROJECTIONS: MISE EN ABYME, with an essay by Brian Wallis, Presentation House, Vancouver 1997; the catalogue for the Kiesler Prize, Vienna 2000; the catalogue for the 8th Cairo Biennial 2001, essay by Gary Sangster, Contemporary Museum Baltimore and THE MIRROR AND THE GARDEN, Diputacion Granada, Spain with essays by Jan Avgikos and Jean Fisher (2003). She has taught and lectured extensively in the USA, Japan, and Europe. Recent full-time positions include the Visual Arts Program at MIT Boston (2002-2003) and the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart, Germany (2003-2004). Currently, Judith Barry is Director of the MFA in Visual Arts at AIB/Lesley University in Boston.