| American installation artist and video artist. She graduated from the University of Florida in 1972, having studied finance, architecture and art; in 1986 she received an MA in Communication Arts from New York Institute of Technology. Barry's work was consistently guided by an interest in the ways in which lived social relations are translated into built form in architecture and public space. Casual Shopper is typical of her early video pieces in examining these issues through a narrative about a couple in a Californian shopping mall; in it, Barry shows how the realms of private fantasy blend into the fantastical confections of the malls architecture. The slide and film installation In the Shadow of the City...Vamp r y... (1982-5) points to her related interests in subject formation, states of mind, and the way in which power is exercised through the gaze: bringing together a series of domestic and urban spaces, the images show a number of figures looking out of a window and a woman watching a man sleep. Imagination, Dead Imagine explores subjectivity in more detail: taking the form of an over sized Minimalist cube, the sculpture is lit up by internal projections showing an androgynous head being assailed by dirt, insects and ugly fluids, an allegory of the instability of subjectivity and the self. Barry's interests in critical theory and her use of film and video media place her alongside a number of artists working in the USA in the 1980s such as Krzysztof Wodiczko, Hans Haacke and Jenny Holzer. |
