Rosa Barba (born 1972,

Agrigento Agrigento (; or ) is a city on the southern coast of Sicily, Italy and capital of the province of Agrigento. Founded around 582 BC by Greek colonists from Gela, Agrigento, then known as Akragas, was one of the leading cities during the golden ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

) is an Italian

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

and filmmaker. Barba is known for using the medium of film and its materiality to create cinematic film installations, sculptures and publications, relate to avant-garde film and speculative fiction, and which inquire into the ambiguous nature of reality, memory, landscape and their role in their mutual constitution and representation. Suspended between dichotomies—permanent and impermanent, real and fictional, obsolescent and modern, conceptual and concrete, alien and familiar, Rosa Barba’s multiform practice encompasses films, sculptures, installations, live-performances, text, sound. Barba currently lives and works in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

."Rosa Barba Biography"
Esther Schipper

Early life and education

Rosa Barba was born in 1972 in the town of

, on the Italian island of

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

. She started practicing photography before experimenting with moving images using

super 8 Super 8 or Super Eight may refer to: Film * Super 8 film, a motion picture film format released in 1965 * Super 8 film camera, a motion picture camera used to film Super 8mm motion picture format * ''Super 8'' (2011 film), a science-fiction f ...

film. From 1993 to 1995 she studied Theater and Film Studies in

Erlangen Erlangen (; , ) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smalle ...

. She continued her studies in film between 1995 and 2000 at the

Academy of Media Arts Cologne The Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM) is the art and film school of the state of North Rhine Westphalia. It was founded 1989 in Cologne, Germany. Notable artists and filmmakers who studied or taught at the academy include Rosa Barba, VALIE EX ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

. Barba made her first 16mm film while at the academy, titled ''Panzano'' (2000), in which three characters struggle to assign parts among themselves. In 2018, Barba acquired her PhD at the

Malmö Art Academy Malmö Art Academy is an art school as part of Lund University in Lund, Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to th ...

at Lund University, under the supervision of Sarat Maharaj, professor for Visual Arts and Knowledge Systems. The various professional and educational experiences have brought Barba to teaching and she currently holds a Professorship in Art in Space and Time at the Department of Architecture of

ETH Zürich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ra ...

Work

Barba interrogates the industry of cinema and regards it in her work in an architectural sense and as an instrument, where the environment, the screen and the projection can be pushed forward to create another spatiotemporal dimension that is concurrent with and points beyond the context of interior or exterior space. She “contests and recasts truth and fiction, myth and reality, metaphor and material, to a disorienting degree that ultimately extends into a conceptual practice that also recasts the viewer’s own staging as an act of radical and exhilarating reversal—from being the receiver of an image (a subject of control) to being in and among its engine room(s), looking out.” She exhibits in galleries and museums internationally. She has exhibited at

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York, (2024),

MAXXI MAXXI (, 'national museum of 21st-century arts') is a national museum of contemporary art and architecture in the Flaminio neighborhood of Rome, Italy. The museum is managed by a foundation created by the Italian Ministry of Culture. The buildi ...

, Rome, (2023, 2025), MALI, Lima (2024), Depot Museum Boijmans, Rotterdam (2024),

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

, Paris (2023-2024),

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

, London (2023), PICA, Perth Australia (2023), Villa Medici, Rome (2022),

Neue Nationalgalerie The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its sculpt ...

, Berlin (2021-2022), Cukrarna, Ljubljana (2021, 2022) Tabakalera, International Centre for Contemporary Culture, San Sebastián, and at

Kunsthalle Bremen The Kunsthalle Bremen is an art museum in Bremen, Germany. It is located close to the Bremen Old Town on the "Culture Mile" (). The Kunsthalle was built in 1849, enlarged in 1902 by architect Eduard Gildemeister, and expanded several more times, ...

. Other recent solo shows include the

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. I ...

, Palacio de Cristal, Madrid (2017); Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2017);

Malmö Konsthall Malmö Konsthall is an exhibition hall located in the center of Malmö, Sweden. It is one of the largest exhibition halls for contemporary art in Europe. Building The hall was designed by architect Klas Anshelm (1914-1980), who was inspir ...

(2017); CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux (2016-2017);

Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt The Schirn Kunsthalle is a Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany, located in the old city between the Römer and the Frankfurt Cathedral; it is part of Frankfurt's Museumsufer (Museum Riverbank). The Schirn exhibits both modern and contemporary ar ...

(2016); MIT Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA;

Albertinum The Albertinum () is a modern art museum. The sandstone-clad Renaissance Revival architecture, Renaissance Revival building is located on Brühl's Terrace in the historic center of Dresden, Germany. It is named after King Albert, King of Saxony, A ...

in Dresden; Center of Contemporary Art, Vilnius (2014); MAXXI, Rome (2014);

Turner Contemporary Turner Contemporary is an art gallery in Margate, Kent, England, intended as a contemporary arts space and catalyst for the regeneration of the town. The title commemorates the association of the town with noted landscape painter J. M. W. Turne ...

, Margate (2013); Bergen Kunsthall (2013); MUSAC in Castilla y Leon (2013);

Kunsthaus Zürich The Kunsthaus Zürich is an art museum in Zurich. It is the biggest art museum in Switzerland by area and houses one of the most important art collections in Switzerland, assembled over time by the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, a nonprofit art soc ...

(2012),

Jeu de Paume ''Jeu de paume'' (, ; originally spelled ; ), nowadays known as real tennis, (US) court tennis or (in France) ''courte paume'', is a ball-and-court game that originated in France. It was an indoor precursor of tennis played without racquets, ...

, Paris, (2012);

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is an art museum for contemporary art, located in St. Louis, Missouri. Known informally as the CAM St. Louis, the museum is located at 3750 Washington Boulevard in the Grand Center Arts District. The build ...

; Fondazione Galleria Civica, Trento, and MART, Rovereto (2011); Kunstverein Braunschweig (2011) and Tate Modern, London (2010). Barba has participated in the 52nd, 53rd and 56th Venice Biennale. At the 56th Biennale ''All the World's Futures'', curated by Okwui Enwezor (2015), Barba exhibited ''Bending to Earth'' (2015). She participated in the Liverpool Biennale in 2010, in the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Performa13, New York (2013), the Beaufort Triennale (2021), as well as in various festivals and other biennials. She participated in the inaugural Malta Biennale in 2024. In 2010 she curated the group show ''A Curated Conference'' at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid with works from the collection. Afterwards, the exhibition was the inspiration for the films ''The Hidden Conference I-III'', which were performatively filmed in various museum depots. The idea of preservation is further mined through her exploration of nature and the cosmos, which are both capable of preserving documents regarding the relationship between human beings and nature and the influence that they have exerted on it. They also share the encounter between old and new technologies, a coming together prompted by how they are used, as happens with deserts, or by the need to what is out of sight, as is the case with astronomy. In The Color out of Space (2015) she draws parallel between artistic and scientific investigations which reveal themselves as essentially speculative endeavours. Barba has been actively developing her practice through a number of international residencies, including the two-year residency program at

Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten The Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (State Academy of Fine Arts) was founded in 1870 in Amsterdam. It is a classical academy, a place where philosophers, academics and artists meet to test and exchange ideas and knowledge. The school supports ...

in Amsterdam (2003-2004); Production-in-Residence program, Baltic Arts Center Visby (2006);

Villa Aurora The Villa Aurora, 520 Paseo Miramar, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, has been an artists' residence since 1995. It is the former home of the German Jewish author Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta. The Feuchtwangers bought this Spanish-style ...

, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, USA (2006); IASPIS Stockholm (2007-2008) and the Artists-in-Residence-Programme of

Chinati Foundation The Chinati Foundation/La Fundación Chinati is a contemporary art museum located in Marfa, Texas, and based upon the ideas of its founder, artist Donald Judd. Mission The specific intention of Chinati is to preserve and present to the public pe ...

, Marfa, Texas (2013). Later residencies include a stay at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center EMPAC at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy (NY) in 2014-15, a residency at Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco (CA) and Denniston Hill, Glen Wild in 2017, Guest Artist programme of Arts at CERN, Geneva and Atelier Calder, Saché, France in 2021, Callie’s, Berlin in 2022 and Schaufler Residency @TU Dresden in 2023. At EMPAC, Barba was commissioned a new work production in collaboration with Rensselaer's Hirsch Observatory, which resulted in two site-specific installations spanning different media formats, The Color out of Space and White Museum. At Callie’s, Berlin, Barba developed ''Voice Engine'', a performance installation which has been presented at Centre Pompidou in 2023 and Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam in 2024. Barba's works belong to collections such as

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, also known as the Louisiana, is an art museum located north of Copenhagen, Denmark. Attracting over 700,000 guests annually, the Louisiana is Scandinavia's most visited museum for Modern art, modern and contempor ...

, Humlebæk
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin: Home
Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin], Museo Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, MACBA, Barcelona and

Film

Barba's films develop from situations that form societies and landscapes. By using her film camera as a drawing instrument, she outlines and relates directly to the formal properties of an object. She investigates environments and weaves stories of place and people into fictitious narratives that open up new possibilities for interpretation. For example, in the film ''Outwardly from Earth's Center'' that was produced on the Swedish island

Gotland Gotland (; ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a Provinces of Sweden, province/Counties of Sweden, county (Swedish län), Municipalities of Sweden, municipality, a ...

during the winter of 2006 as a Production-in-Residence project for the Baltic Art Center in Sweden, Barba collaborated with the local inhabitants, who also performed in the film, to create narratives and form characters as the filming progressed. ''Outwardly from Earth's Center'' is constructed around a fictitious society living on the truly existing island of

Gotska Sandön Gotska Sandön (literally translated as "The Gotlandic Sand Island") is an uninhabited Swedish island north of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. It has been a national park since 1909. Geography Sandön is situated north of Fårö in the Baltic Se ...

, which drifts approximately one meter per year and. The depiction of the small society trying to hold up the disappearance of the island develops into a surrealistic atmosphere that slowly but surely replaces the experience of what one might consider a beautiful documentary with a more abstract and somewhat absurd picture of people's struggle and vulnerability. In 2019, she produced ''Aggregate States of Matters'', a 35mm film shot in the Peruvian Andes which deals with the increasing impact of climate change on remote areas. At its core, the film pivots on the ambivalent negotiation between the binary idea of nature and culture, oscillating within the contemporary discourse on the environment, and its complex layers based on scientific, philosophical, spiritual and cultural approaches. Barba worked with communities that are affected by glacier melting and its geological time becoming present today. In a cautious, yet scrutinised exploration, the film illustrates blurring and melding boundaries between human and non-human actors.

Sculpture and installation

Barba's sculptures and installations are created from the physical and conceptual components of the cinema which become dissected, abstracted, compiled and arranged anew. The roles and relations of the various components are questioned and newly defined: the mechanical objects move, speak and become the main protagonists in the exhibition space. For example, the work ''Boundaries of Consumption'' (2012) features a 16 mm projector directed at film cans with silver globes balancing while the film runs through. The shadow of this spatial set-up is projected as moving images on the wall, changing in colour and appearance over time.

Publications

Since 2004 Barba has been publishing a series of printed editions parallel to her films as another form to express and dismantle the cinematic organism. She conjugates its repertoire while she disbands and defines the relationships and hierarchies between image and word and like between image and viewer anew. The series ''Printed Cinema'' which won the artist book award 2006 at the

Ontario Association of Art Galleries The Galeries Ontario / Ontario Galleries (GOG), formerly Ontario Association of Art Galleries / Association Ontarienne des Galeries d’Art (OAAG/AOGA), was established in 1968 to encourage development of public art galleries, art museums, community ...

is published for specific exhibition spaces and accompanies her films as secondary literature for a limited time. The printed editions present an extended and free form of the exhibited film which reveal the filming process including research material and unused filmic fragments. The edition exists beyond the duration of the film. The filmic projection is translated into printed material and confronted with its conditions, materiality and temporality. Through the comparison of both media, the emphasis on image, language and text and their relationships and overlapping themes are shifted into a new light. Barba has published several monographic books, including her last one: “On the Anarchic Organization of Cinematic Spaces – Evoking Spaces beyond Cinema” 2021 which develops a new thinking by destabilising traditional cinema structures.

Awards (selected)

*PIAC - Prix International d’Art Contemporain (International Contemporary Art Prize), Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco (2016) *Experimental Film Award (''Bending to Earth''), 24th Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival (2016) *No Violence Award, 54th Ann Arbor Film Festival (2016) *Experimental Film Award (''From Source to Poem''), 25th Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival (2017) *Italian Council, 3rd Edition, Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, Rome (2018) *The Calder Prize, Calder Foundation, New York (2020)

References

External links

* * Rosa Barba, "In a Perpetual Now", in the art journal "Brooklyn Rail" (New York) (September 2021 issue)
In a Perpetual Now2015 ''BOMB Magazine'' interview of Rosa Barba by Joan Jonas
* Watch Rosa Barba in conversation with Francesca Pietropaolo (Brooklyn Rail, May 17, 2022)
NSE #561 , Rosa Barba with Francesca Pietropaolo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barba, Rosa 1972 births Living people 20th-century German women artists 21st-century German women artists 20th-century Italian women artists 21st-century Italian women artists German installation artists German video artists Italian installation artists Italian contemporary artists People from Agrigento Academic staff of the University of the Arts Bremen Academic staff of ETH Zurich