Snap, click, the sounds of the highbrow paparazzi. Barbara Probst likes to arrange for several photographers to record the same subject at precisely the same moment, with various cameras and films, from different angles and distances. In one grouping, a vibrant image of a woman in a crosswalk is accompanied by the same moment inscribed in grainy black-and-white, from above, through a window. One suggests voyeurism, another incorporates the slipshod framing of a snapshot, and the first, on reconsideration, more closely resembles a runway shot of a model on the move. These multiple exposures are more than a meditation on the event being recorded--the diversity of images points out the ways photographers direct and classify their images in the making, and brings to light the viewer's active role in reading them. Probst, born in Munich in 1964, divides her time between Germany and New York, where she was recently included in New Photography 2006 at The Museum of Modern Art.
Elizabeth yearns to be fully seen--by Richard, the charismatic photographer who offers her a chance at the kind of embodied knowledge she's never had. A chance to be like her beloved Georgia O'Keeffe. She didn't say she wanted to be seen by the whole damn world.
Cathryn McAllister's carefully curated life is upended when she travels to
Iceland to interview a charismatic glass artist who ignites a hunger for
everything she's told herself she doesn't need anymore: Passion.
Vulnerability. Risk. Gradually, she abandons the life-and the self-she's
always relied on, until she comes face-to-face with devastating choices she
never could have foreseen.
Barbara Probst's long-term photo-art project began with exposure #1 in 2000, featuring her on a Manhattan rooftop from twelve perspectives. The latest exposure #189 explores sculptural human bodies. This publication accompanies a major retrospective and includes a catalog of all 189 exposures and recent works, discussing the relevance of her themes.
Barbara Probst, born in 1964 in Munich and currently residing in New York and Munich, studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and photography under Bernd Becher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. Her artistic journey began with sculptural works, evolving into three-dimensional installations that incorporated photography, and culminating in her internationally recognized multi-part photographic series known as “exposures.” The new series of diptychs from 2015, titled "12 Moments," marks a shift towards minimalism, featuring only two perspectives of the same scene captured simultaneously. This contrasts with her earlier, more complex works, as these images evoke a dreamlike quality. Robert Hobbs, a prominent American author, curator, and art historian, contextualizes these new pieces within Probst’s artistic evolution in his extensive essay. The book, developed in close collaboration with the artist, is designed to allow viewers to engage with the diptychs in a manner that aligns with her visual concepts. Its sophisticated binding ensures it remains open easily, while the cover material enhances the book's status as an objet d’art.
(Please scroll down for english version) Barbara Probst, geboren 1964 in München, studierte Bildhauerei an der Akademie der Bildenden Künste in München und Fotografie an der Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Nach ihren Anfängen als Bildhauerin, arbeitet sie seit dem Jahr 2000 an fotografischen Reihen mit dem Titel „Exposures“, die aus verschiedenen Aufnahmen desselben Moments bestehen, wobei sie eine Vielzahl von Kameras verwendet, die aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln und Abständen auf dasselbe Ereignis oder Objekt gerichtet sind. Ihre Bilderreihen lassen spannende Dramaturgien entstehen, die an verschiedene fotografische Genres erinnern (von Porträt- bis Stillleben-, Landschafts- oder Studiofotografie). Barbara Probst bringt die Artefakte des fotografischen Prozesses ans Licht und untersucht Strategien der Repräsentation. Sie lässt den Betrachter über den Wahrheitsgehalt und die Wirkung von fotografischen Bildern nachdenken. Das Buch stellt frühe Werke wie Exposure #1 (2000) als auch ihre jüngste Reihe aus dem Jahr 2018, Exposures # 138, 139 und 140 in den Mittelpunkt. Der Autor Frédéric Paul (Kurator am Centre Pompidou, Paris) erforscht den konzeptionellen und theoretischen Hintergrund von Probsts Werk mit dem Ziel, ihren künstlerischen Arbeitsprozess von Konzept, Gestaltung, Produktion, Installation und Ausstellung bis hin zur Wirkung auf den Betrachter zu erklären. Born in 1964 in Munich, Barbara Probst studied sculpture at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich and photography at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. After starting out as a sculptor, she has been working on photographic series entitled Exposures since 2000. Each of these series consists of various representations of the same moment, generated by a multitude of cameras pointed at the same event or subject, from different angles and at different distances. Once the images are linked to each other, an enigmatic drama emerges from these sets, calling to mind different photographic genres (from portrait to still life, landscape or studio photography). Bringing to light the artefacts of the photographic process and focusing on representation strategies, Barbara Probst challenges our ability to decipher reality. The book features both her first emblematic works such as Exposure #1 (2000) and her most recent series created in 2018, Exposures # 138, 139 and 140. In his essay the author Frédéric Paul (curator at Centre Pompidou, Paris) explores the conceptual and theoretical background of Probst’s work by explaining her process of conceptualising and creating the exposures as well as aspects of installation and exhibition and the impact on the viewer.
