Uta Barth

Portrait of Uta Barth in her home. Photo by David Horvitz

Uta Barth (born 1958 in Berlin, Germany) is a contemporary photographer who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Barth is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow^[1] and a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004‑05.^[2]

Education and teaching

Barth received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of California, Davis and an Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles. From 1990 to 2008, she was a professor in the Art Department of the University of California, Riverside, where she is currently a professor of art emeritus. After receiving the MacArthur Fellowship in October 2012, she noted that she still plans to teach on a part-time basis because teaching forces her to "put language to" what she is thinking.^[3]

Collections

Uta Barth's work is represented in numerous public and private collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Tate Gallery in London; the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Massachusetts.^[4] Her work is exhibited regularly and has been shown in one-person and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States and Europe, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Stockholm, Sweden, Düsseldorf, Germany, Bilbao, Spain, and Tokyo, Japan.^[3]

Monographs

• 2012 - Uta Barth. ...to draw with light. Blind Spot, New York.
• 2010 - Uta Barth: The Long Now. Greg R. Miller & Co., New York. Essays by Jonathan Crary, Russell Ferguson, and Holly Myers.
• 2006 - Uta Barth 2006: Just Spanning Time. Essay by Cheryl Kaplan Exh. cat. Minneapolis: Franklin Art Works.
• 2004 - Uta Barth: white blind (bright red). Santa Fe: SITE Santa Fe. Essay by Jan Tumlir.
• 2004 - Uta Barth. London: Phaidon Press. Essays by Uta Barth, Pamela Lee, and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe; interview with Matthew Higgs; and selected writings by Joan Didion.
• 2000 - Uta Barth: ...and of time. Artist’s book. Essay by Timothy Martin. Published in conjunction with a project commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, for the exhibition “Departures: 11 Artists”.
• 2000 - At the Edge of the Decipherable: Recent Photographs by Uta Barth. 2nd ed. Essay by Elizabeth A. T. Smith. Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art and St. Ann’s Press.
• 2000 - Uta Barth: In Between Places. Seattle: Henry Art Gallery and University of Washington. Essays by Sheryl Conkelton, Russell Ferguson, and Timothy Martin.
• 1999 - Uta Barth: nowhere near. Artist’s book. Essay by Jan Tumlir. Published in conjunction with a three-part exhibition project by the same name at ACME., Los Angeles; Bonakdar Jancou Gallery, New York; and Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm.
• 1999 - Uta Barth: nowhere near. Exh. brochure. Overland Park, Kansas: Johnson County Community College Art Gallery. Text by Jan Tumlir.
• 1995 - At the Edge of the Decipherable: Recent Photographs by Uta Barth. Essay by Elizabeth A. T. Smith. Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art.

Selected grants and fellowships

• 2012 Anonymous Was A Woman Award
• 2010 Nominated for the 2011 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize
• 2007 Broad Art Foundation USA Artist Fellowship
• 2004–05 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
• 1996 Nominated Tiffany Award
• 1994–95 National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship
• 1995 AMI Grant (Art Matters Inc., New York), Visual Artist Fellowship
• 1992–93 AMI Grant (Art Matters Inc., New York), Visual Artist Fellowship
• 1990–91 National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Artist Fellowship
• 1983–84 National Arts Association^[5]

References