Sikkema Jenkins

Burt Barr

21 May - 02 Jul 2010

© Burt Barr
The Ship (still), 2010
Video (black and white, no audio)
BURT BARR
Recent Works

May 21 – July 2, 2010

Opening Reception: Friday, May 21st, 6-8 pm

Sikkema Jenkins & Co is pleased to present a dual exhibition of new video works by Burt Barr and recent photographs by Valerie Belin on view from May 21 through July 2, 2010.
Burt Barr has claimed that “black and white are the only two colors I’ll ever need.” The current exhibition maintains this assertion with works like The Sprinkler, The Ship, The Arrows, and Soap Suds (all 2010). Each of these works are projected on the walls in approximate square shapes, shot and projected in 4:3 ratio. The nearly still images have no narrative content – intended to be pure visual works that “hang” on the wall.
There is a notable exceptions to Barr’s claim to only need black and white on display here. Self Portrait (2009-10), greets visitors on a monitor as they enter the gallery. As Barr puts it, “Self Portrait is the creeps,” showing the artist wearing a horse mask and smoking a cigar to a sound track of laughter.
Burt Barr has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. He has had solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul; and P.S. 1, Long Island City.
Other installations have taken place at The Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany; The Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL; and MUDAM, Luxembourg.
Barr is the recipient of numerous awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, The American Film Institute, The Andrea Frank Foundation, The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Art, and The Massachusetts Council on the Arts & Humanities. In the summer of 2008 he was a visiting artist at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.
Post-production for Burt Barr’s videos are provided by Steve Hamilton and Johnny Luisi at Whitehouse Productions.
 

Tags: Burt Barr, Valérie Belin