ROBERT BARRY | Panel Pieces | Four Reflections (Parra & Romero, Reflections, Ibiza, 2016)

Robert Barry
1936 New York

Barry was born and raised in the Bronx, New York City. After graduating from Hunter College, he studied there under the artists William Baziotes and Robert Motherwell and later joined the college’s faculty himself. Since 1967, Barry has been creating immaterial artworks, installations, and performance art.

In 1968, he is reported to have said: “Nothing seems to me to be more powerful than the world itself.”

Works | Barry’s work focuses on transcending the previously known physical boundaries of the art object in order to express the unknown or the unperceived. Consequently, Barry has explored various ways of defining the space around objects - which is usually invisible - rather than creating the objects themselves.

Among his most important invisible works from his early period are “Carrier Wave,” in which Barry used the carrier waves of a radio station for a specified period of time “not as a means of transmitting information, but rather as an object”, as well as “Radiation Piece” and “Inert Gas Piece,” in which he opened various containers of noble gases in different environments in front of groups of spectators, such as a helium bottle in the desert.

In the late 1960s, Barry’s works were published in the avant-garde journal “0 to 9,” which experimented with language and the construction of meaning. These contributions were blank and appeared only in the table of contents.

Exhibitions | Barry’s work has been shown at international events such as the Paris Biennale (1971), Documenta in Kassel (1972), and the Venice Biennale (1972). He is represented in Paris and New York by the Yvon Lambert Gallery.

Barry’s works are included in the permanent collections of renowned museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

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A Glimpse into the Exhibition" Robert Barry: Reflections" | May 3, 2016 – October 8, 2016 | Parra & Romero, Santa Gertrudis, Ibiza 

Parra & Romero presents Robert Barry’s second solo exhibition and his first at its Ibiza location. Titled “Reflections,” the exhibition features a new series of works as well as a historical immaterial work by the artist. Time, space, language, and perception are the key concepts that define the exhibition. And words are essential elements in Barry’s oeuvre.

“I use words because they speak out to the viewer. Words come from us. We can relate to them. They bridge the gap between the viewer and the piece.” Robert Barry

Language plays a crucial role in Barry’s work. He works with a list of words he has compiled over the years. Many of them have been used repeatedly in different situations. Their meaning arises from the way they are used, as well as from where and how they are positioned.

The four panel pieces presented in the exhibition explore the themes of language and space.  Arranged in a square formation, this work forms a grid, a macro image of the squares that form its four points.

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Four Reflections | Panel Pieces

"Four Reflections" is an invitation to reflect, not just to look. This work of art transports you to a quiet, intense mental space. With sparse fragments of words, the work does not explain itself. It waits for you to finish the thought. The meaning of this work by Robert Barry emerges in your mind, not on the wall.

For Barry, thinking is the artwork.

In “Four Reflections,” as in all his other panel pieces, Barry deconstructs language to slow down interpretation. And also to disrupt “your expectations” of how language should function. The fragments allow for no clear conclusions and force viewers to think actively. The words stand for inner thoughts, consciousness, and the impermanence of meaning itself.

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Object - Sculpture | Titled: "Four Reflections"

Singed (monogrammed) & dated, with accompanying certificate from the Griffelkunstvereinigung

Made of Schott black glas with sandblasted lettering | Four parts, with suspension on the back | Size 42 x 42 x 1,5 cm

Edition Griffelkunst, Hamburg | Catalogue raisonné, *Griffelkunst*, Vol. III, 2001–2010, No. E444.

Provenance | Artist's Atelier, Gallery Spain, Private Collection Denmark

Differential taxation according to § 25a UStG. No taxes included. | Differenzbesteuerung nach § 25a UStG. Kunstgegenstände und Sammlungsstücke, Sonderregelung.