Lutz Bacher (21 September 1943 – 14 May 2019) was an
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...
closely associated with
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...
since the 1970s, and who lived and worked in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
from 2013 until her death.
The name Lutz Bacher was a pseudonym, and the artist did not publicly reveal a former name.
She was once considered a figure with "cult" status—known for being "legendary but elusive" in the California art scene.
Since the early 2000s, her work increasingly gained mainstream recognition.
Lutz Bacher was married to the astrophysicist
Donald C. Backer for almost 40 years.
Themes
Bacher's body of work has been described as "eclectic,"
"rough, open-ended,"
and "disturbing."
It consists of works in a variety of formats, including videotapes, photographs, and other mixed media.
Many of these works incorporate elements from popular culture, personal artifacts, and found objects, and address questions of identity as expressed through sexuality and the human body.
Work
Among Bacher’s early work from the 1970s is ‘Men at War’ (1975), a series of photographs, based on a single image, of American sailors relaxing on a beach. The young men’s initial cordiality is eclipsed by a painted swastika on one sailor’s chest, turning the image into an allusion to incipient male violence. Bacher further examines the intersections of masculinity, violence, and power in ‘Sex with Strangers’ series (1986), which combines found pornographic images with captions written in the style of scientific study about rape. In these works, images designed to satisfy male pleasure are overturned to reveal their exploitation of the female body.
Beginning in the late 1980s, Bacher began working in
video art
Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting. V ...
. Her time-based 'Huge Uterus' (1989) documented a surgical procedure to have fibroid tumors removed from her uterus.
Bacher's video work derives from her first-hand experiences but are not fully documentary or autobiographical.
In 'Closed Circuit' (1997-2000), Bacher installed a closed-circuit camera above
Pat Hearn
Pat Hearn (1955 – 2000) was an American art dealer, who ran Pat Hearn Gallery in New York City from 1983 until 2000. Hearn founded the The Armory Show (art fair), Armory Show with American art dealer Colin De Land, Matthew Marks Gallery, Matthe ...
's desk which transmitted a live feed of surveillance footage into the gallery. 'Closed Circuit' was first exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art after Hearn's death.
Career
In 2002, Bacher received the
Anonymous Was a Woman award, and she was included in the 2012
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...
. Bacher was represented by gallerist
Pat Hearn
Pat Hearn (1955 – 2000) was an American art dealer, who ran Pat Hearn Gallery in New York City from 1983 until 2000. Hearn founded the The Armory Show (art fair), Armory Show with American art dealer Colin De Land, Matthew Marks Gallery, Matthe ...
of Pat Hearn Gallery in New York, City beginning in 1993.
Exhibitions
Over a 40-year career, Bacher exhibited work in numerous solo and group shows around the world, including museums and galleries in her native San Francisco Bay area such as the
Berkeley Art Museum
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and film archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director ...
and the
Ratio 3 gallery in San Francisco.
Museum solo exhibitions of her work took place at
Secession Vienna (2016)
"Lutz Bacher"at the
Aspen Art Museum
Founded in 1979, the Aspen Art Museum (AAM) is a non-collecting contemporary art museum located in Aspen, Colorado, United States. AAM exhibitions include drawings, paintings, sculptures, multimedia installations and electronic media.
Building
...
, Colorado (2014)
National Museum of Denmark Copenhagen (2014); an
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2008). In 2009, her multimedia works were featured in "MY SECRET LIFE", a retrospective, and her first museum survey exhibition, at
MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution at 2201 Jackson Avenue in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in New York City, United States. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
.
Bacher was the focus of three European exhibitions in 2013: one at
Portikus
Portikus is an exhibition hall for contemporary art in Frankfurt am Main, that was founded in 1987 by Kasper König. The museum is part of Frankfurt's Museumsufer (Museum Riverbank). Portikus presents the work of both internationally renowned ar ...
in
Frankfurt, Germany
Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the foreland of the Taunus on its namesake Main, it forms a contin ...
; one at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an modernism, artistic and cultural centre on The Mall (London), The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps a ...
in
London, UK
London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Tha ...
; and the third at
Kunsthalle Zürich
The Kunsthalle Zürich is a kunsthalle (a contemporary art exhibition centre) in Zürich, Switzerland. Founded in 1985, it is located on Limmatstrasse, near the city centre. A number of temporary exhibitions are organized each year.
Directors
* ...
in
Zürich, Switzerland
Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...
. Those three institutions published an artist book presenting Bacher's complete oeuvre.
Collections
Lutz Bacher's work is included in the following collections:
*
Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...
*
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...
, Chicago
*
UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
*
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, New York
*
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...
, San Francisco
*
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...
, Minneapolis
*
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...
, New York
References
External links
Artist's websiteLutz Bacher at Greene NaftaliLutz Bacherat
Galerie Buchholz
Galerie Buchholz is an art gallery specializing in international contemporary art with exhibition spaces in Cologne, Berlin and New York City. The gallery was founded in Cologne in 1986 by Daniel Buchholz, and today is run jointly with Christophe ...
Do You Love Me a book by the artist
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacher, Lutz
1943 births
2019 deaths
Artists from Berkeley, California
Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area