The program shows a selection of media works by artist and writer Judith Barry, including early single-channel video projects such as Casual Shopper (1981), Space Invaders (1982), and Death Valley ’69 (1986) alongside a selection of her multi-channel film and video installations, including The Work of the Forest (1992), Consigned to Border: The Terror and Possibilities in the Things Not Seen (1997), and All the light that’s ours to see (2020).

In her practice, she often explores various types of spatial conditions that viewers can experience as they engage with her work and parse its meaning. She has a research-based practice where both the form and the content of each project proceed from a set of evolving questions. Trained in a number of disciplines, her work also draws upon elements from cinema studies / continental philosphy, architecture / exhibition design, performance art / dance, sculpture, photography, and digital media.

Program

Presentation by Judith Barry and screening of selected works:

Casual Shopper, 1981
Ten Second Films, 1982
Space Invaders, 1982
Death Valley ’69, 1986
Echo, 1986 (excerpt)
Imagination, dead imagine, 1990 (excerpt)
The Work of the Forest, 1992 (excerpt)
Consigned to Border: The Terror and Possibilities in the Things Not Seen, 1997 (excerpt)
Voice off, 1999 (excerpt)
Study for the Mirror and Garden, 2007 – 2016 (excerpt)
All the light that’s ours to see, 2020 (excerpt)

Followed by a conversation between the artist and Helmut Draxler.

The event will take place in English.

Judith Barry has exhibited internationally at such venues as the Berlin Biennale, Venice Biennale(s) of Art/Architecture, Sao Paolo Biennial, Whitney Biennial, and Documenta, among many others. A twelve-installation survey of her work, Judith Barry: body without limits, toured in Spain and Portugal between 2008 and 2010. Current exhibitions include Style Congo. Heritage & Heresy, CIVA, Brussels and Topologies of the Real, Techne Shenzhen 2023, Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning. Public Fantasy, a collection of Barryʼs essays, was published by the ICA in London, 1991.

Helmut Draxler is an art historian, cultural theorist and curator. He was professor of Art Theory at the University of Applied Arts until 2023. In 2021, The Truth of Dutch Painting. An Archaeology of Contemporary Art was published by Brill/Fink.