Robert Barry American artist, one of the prominent representatives of conceptual art. Country: USA

1. Biography of Robert Barry
2. Transition from Painting to Installations
3. Provocative Exhibitions
4. Word-Based Artworks

Biography of Robert Barry

Robert Barry is an American artist and one of the prominent representatives of conceptual art. He has made a significant contribution to the development of conceptual art in the 1960s.

Transition from Painting to Installations

Initially a professional painter, Barry gradually moved away from traditional painting techniques and began experimenting with installations using delicate wire. Eventually, he completely abandoned representational art and started presenting radio waves, supersonic frequencies, microwaves, and radiation in his shows. During this time, Barry's works can be seen as an attempt to blur the line between art and the surrounding environment.

One of his notable series, titled "Inert Gas," involved releasing two cubic feet of helium into the sky above the Mojave Desert and photographing the invisible result, which served as a metaphor for the dissolution of art in infinite life. Philosophical provocation of the audience was a common tactic employed by Barry during this period.

Provocative Exhibitions

When preparing for the 1969 exhibition in London, Barry sent the organizer an instruction to print the following specification for an artifact: "Here is something very near in space and time, but as yet unknown to me." Readers of this text, later included in the provocative exhibition "Life in Your Head," could not help but notice Barry's interest in what he defined as "intangible and immeasurable things."

In describing his telepathic artwork, "Telepathic Piece," the artist stated, "During the exhibition I will try to communicate telepathically a work of art, the nature of which is a series of thoughts that are not applicable to language or image." In the same year, Barry announced that the opening of his exhibition in Amsterdam would consist of gallery staff closing the door and hanging a sign that read "Exhibition Closed." The intention was for some of the audience to understand that the closed gallery and the exhibition were one and the same.

Word-Based Artworks

In the 1970s, Barry began working with words. He published several projects and created a series of artworks in which words were projected onto walls, placed on canvas, floors, glass, or mirrors. These words unexpectedly engaged with the viewer, and their mental reaction became a part of the artwork.