Barbara Probst: exposures

Opening Reception: Saturday April 7, 6:30-8:30

Barbara Probst's work investigates the many ambiguities inherent to the photographic image. By use of a multiple-release trigger system Probst abandons the single-eye gaze of the camera; presenting pieces, composed of multiple photographs, viewed from different angles and distances all shot at the same moment.

Probst's photographs causes us to consider directly the act of looking, by comparing and contrasting, we attempt to piece together the mysteries surrounding the images. We are provided with certain amounts of information and missing others. Probst however, plans this with precision and consideration, urging the viewer to become aware of fleeting moments and the frailty of a captured image.

Despite the simultaneous shutter and common location, the images differ in style, atmosphere, and content. There is no overall aesthetic to tie them together, instead the photographs are bound by the one and only moment of exposure. Thus forcing the viewer to confront their inclination to believe in photographic truth and exposing the photograph¹s ability to mask, imply and affect.

Probst's art is a performance of the moment, the collection of images, and the disruption of the scene. The word exposure can describe her subjects under the scrutiny of the camera, the unveiling nature of her photographic process, or simply the act of taking a picture, opening a shutter to let light in.

Barbara Probst was recently featured in Photography Now at the Museum of Modern Art. She is currently the subject of a survery exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago. The Museum is co-publishing Barbara Probst: Exposures with Steidel, due to be released next month.

Barbara Probst
exposures