2021.3.18 – 5.20
Robert Barry

After the first exhibition held at Gallery Shilla in 2018, the title of the exhibition, which was designated as a code to understand the second Robert Barry exhibition, is “IN BETWEEN…” This title can be comprehended as a term that divides the space, but if you think more about its meaning, it extends not only to the physical space perceived by the eyes but also to metaphysical concepts through cognitive understanding. The tile, “IN BETWEEN…” integrates both time and space. We fix certain boundaries for identifying being; something is sorted to be inside or outside. However, in some cases, it is also ‘between them’ that does not belong to either side. To make it more vague, it could have both factors, like quantum mechanics. Conceptual artist, Robert Barry, might ask for the meaning of existence in this exhibition.

The life of the artist who passed his eighty fifth birthday on the March 9th resembles the monotonous tone of string instruments such as contrabass, but the studio is always full of the artist’s sincerity, effort, and energy. A part of the studio has been moved to Gallery Shilla, Korea for this exhibition, which includes more than 20 works. There are two space installation as an early experimental work in the 1960s and precious paintings showing the process of change in the 80- 90s. Furthermore, some paintings recently produced in 2020 and 2021 show the composition of pencil drawings together and some of them are consisted of 9 square canvases, each one is sized about 30cm square. Specifically, a site-specific installations is an eye catching work which is placed directly on the widespread glass of the gallery exterior (9.5m in width and 6.2m in height).

Two Installation: Works: Gold Ring, Steel Disc Suspended
The main interest in Robert Barry’s work in the 1960s was “Invisibility, Dematerialization” as other conceptual artists, working with documents or performances. < Carrier Wave Series (1968) > and are the representative works of this period. The key point of the works perceives ‘awakening of self-awareness’ to the experience of what was happening at the time in spite of the somewhat ambiguous concept of invisibility. And this “invisibility” works were transferred to vertical and horizontal lines using transparent wires in the gallery space. In fact, the lines are invisible unless you pay an attentiveness. The presence of the wires become a means of perception for viewers to sense the space. < Steel Disc Suspended (1968-2021) > and < Gold Ring (1968-2021) > shown in this exhibition are works in this context.

< Suspended Steel Disc > was first presented at Seth Siegelaub’s apartment, and was also exhibited at the Gasser & Grunert Gallery in New York, and is now in the MOMA collection. Steel Disc Suspended and Gold Ring in this exhibition were produced by Gallery Shilla under the approval of the artist, and the installation method and idea were based on the original work in 1968, which was titled by < Untitled(1968) >, but it was retitled as < Suspended Still Disc(1968-2021) > in this exhibition. The material of < Gold Ring > is a casual commodity that the artist discovered in a store in Canal street in Chinatown, Manhattan in the 1960s. The idea of the work can be understood as a concept of Object in Duchamp’s work. < Gold Ring > installed in different ways depending on the gallery spaces in several prior exhibitions.

The purpose of this experimental installation is to show that the space where art is displayed is not limited to the wall where the painting is hung, but art includes the entire exhibition space. Although the wire is almost invisible, the presence of the wire makes it possible to recognize the space in which the viewer stands at that moment. Walking between the two works, the viewer can perceive the space and the work. And he and she will think about the meaning of the connection and relationship between or within the space and the viewer.

Selection and Meaning of Words
After passing through the initial experimental period, Barry has worked with only words through various media in the 1970s, the artist reduced the aesthetic form and clearly sustained the artist’s intention. Words have been transformed into various expressions and media while having consistency between the context of ideas and aesthetics that the artist wants to pursue in the category of Conceptual Art. The works that occupy the most scope in this exhibition are those composed only of English words without a visual image.

The artist produced a “Word List” that vertically arranged words in the 70s and 80s. Among the works of this exhibition, < Untitled: Until, Occasion, Inevitable, Avoid, Urgent, Somehow (1990) > is a work of that period. These words are freely selected by the artist in mass media such as New York Times, magazines, and advertisements without any special meaning or intention.

When we think of the “Intertextuality” of Conceptual Art, English words in a neat standard typeface are not conveyers of a determined system of communication, but are open to the subjective understanding of the viewers. Therefore, these words function in works like Art Object. At a specific moment, this Object as an encounter between the viewer and the work is intended to stimulate the ability to think, feel, and interpret.

Boundaries of Painting
Robert Barry’s early paintings, < Green Edges (1964) > and < Diptych (1967) > which are exhibited during the first solo show at Gallery Shilla in 2018 dissolve the fixed idea that “painting” belongs to the two-dimensional category within the canvas. He related the meaning of painting to the wall on which the work hangs. He began to interpret the painting by linking the space and to present the arrangement in which the work is placed as an important element for understanding the work. In this context, < REMIND(2020) > hung in the center of the Gallery One is so significant. Compared to the wall space (15m x 6m high), the size of this work is relatively small, only 25cm square. The artist proudly asked to hang this work in the middle of an empty wall. For the first time and only, this painting which has not only color but also words expresses the correlation to the space where it is presented.

In this exhibition, there are a series of paintings produced in 2020, which are standing out works of the artist’s interpretation of the boundaries of painting. Within a pencil drawing as a boundary, words are limited into the boundary line. In the works, some words are cut off at that boundary. The artist’s thoughts on these cut off words are distinctive. The meaning of the word is inferred from the uncompleted word, the trimmed words hold the resonance. Through this process, the artist explains that words extend beyond the boundaries of the canvas, wall, and window where the words are placed. The presence and expansion effects of these words appear more vividly in the word installation work,  < SOMEHOW(2021) > located on the exterior of the gallery entrance.

ROBERT BARRY (Born in 1936, New York City) earned a B. F. A. and an M. A. from Hunter College where studied under Robert Motherwell, Tony Smith, and Ray Parker. He was one of the four founding members of Conceptual Art along with Lawrence Weiner, Joseph Kosuth, and Douglas Huebler in the late 1960s. Since his first solo exhibition in 1964, Barry’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. He was invited to show in the Paris Biennale, 1971; Documents 5, organized by Harald Szeemann, Kassel, Germany, 1972; the Venice Biennale, 1972, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, 1974. Group exhibitions including works by Robert Barry were held at the Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Kyoto Museum of Fine Arts, Kyoto, among others. Barry’s works can be found in major public collections, such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Le Musee d’ Orsay, Paris; the Panza Collection, Varese; the Ludwig Collection, Cologne; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; and Le Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

(Soojung Hyun, Ph.D.)

Gallery Shilla + Art project and Partners
200-29, Daebong-ro, JUNG-GU, Daegu, Korea
+82 53 422 1628

WEB     INSTAGRAM