Since 1992, Uta Barth has made intimately scaled, barely decipherable photographs of landscapes, interiors, and city streets. She creates the images by directing her camera to the out-of-focus backgrounds of scenes that include no central subject. For this latest contribution to the MCA’s series of commissioned Wall Projects for the Exhibition Lobby, Barth abandoned her usual small format and made photographs approximating film screens in size.

Field #20 and Field #21 mimic characteristics of film; color freely bleeds off the edges, and both the camera and the subject are dynamic, in motion, implying movement in the unoccupied foreground. These works draw our attention to our own sense of perception and to the information at the periphery of our fields of vision.

About the Artist

Born in Germany in 1958, Uta Barth lives and works in Los Angeles. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of California, Riverside.

Barth’s work has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions at venues including: Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, New York; Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts; Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Illinois; and Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York.

Barth has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships, including National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowships in 1990/­91 and 1994­/95 as well as AMI Grants from Art Matters Inc., New York in 1992­/93 and 1995.