Barbara Probst
Barbara Probst, born 1964, lives and works in New York and Munich. In Probst’s photographs, the subject of the work becomes the photographic moment of exposure itself. Using a radio-controlled release system, she simultaneously triggers the shutters of several cameras pointed at the same scene from various viewpoints. The resulting sequences of images suspend time and stretch out the split second. The prismatic effect is further heightened when backdrops, often enlarged stills from well-known movies are employed. The apparent narrative is confounded by the multiple locations, which further enhance the sense of artifice. Both illusion and device are always manifest - cameras, studio lights, tripods are all visible. These, as well as the photographer(s) themselves, are both object and viewpoint of a revelatory, photographic exposure.
"Barbara Probst embroils us in different possible interpretations; focusing on a specific moment in time… she directs our attention to the time before or after…"[1] Her work disregards photography’s standard concept of “decisive moment,” and instead references cinema’s practice of multiple cameras to create movement and diversion.[2]
Recent shows include a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen that travelled to the Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague and the Centre PasquArt, Biel. Recent group exhibitions include Perfect Likeness: Photography and Composition, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Eyes on the Street, Cincinnati Art Museum, (Mis)Understanding Photography: Works and Manifestos, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Per Speculum Me Video at Frankfurter Kunstverein, Lost Places. Sites of Photography at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Mixed Use Manhattan: Photography and Related Practices, 1970s to the Present, curated by Lynne Cooke and Douglas Crimp at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Elles at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, at the Tate Modern, London, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Probst was featured in the 2006 New Photography exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and has had solo exhibitions at Oldenburg Kunstverein; Stills Gallery Edinburgh, Scotland; Domaine de Kerguehennec, Bignan; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
References
Selected bibliography
- Barbara Probst: Exposures, [monograph], Steidl-Verlag in cooperation with Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, 2007. ISBN 978-3-86521-392-1
- Hall, Emily. „Barbara Probst at Murray Guy Gallery“, Artforum summer 2009, p. 338/339
- Braun, Reinhard. „Barbara Probst“ in Photo Art, published by Aperture, New York; p. 346-349. ISBN 978-1-59711-062-4
- Schessl, Stefan. „Back to The Beginning, On Barbara Probst´s Photographic Series“, solo show catalogue published by Kunstverein Cuxhaven, Cuxhaven, Germany, 2002