Barbara Probst

We are pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Barbara Probst presenting her fashion photographs.

Each work by the German artist is composed of a group of photographs that appear to be mysteriously connected, without revealing their secret bond at first. Only later we realize that they are showing the same subject from different vantage points. With the help of a remote control, Probst activates multiple cameras for simultaneous shots of the same scene. Each angle conveys a different reality, disclosing the relativity of every single image. The instant is divided, expanded and unfolds like a narrative before our eyes. The fragmentation of an instant in a series of shots becomes a way of investigating the many ambiguities of the photographic image. At the same time Probst explores conventions and typologies, such as the reportage, surveillance, portraiture, still life and fashion photography.

The exhibition begins with a triptych in which models wearing Versace dresses aim their cameras towards a naked man. Each model, with her own lens – controlled from a distance by Probst – creates one of the images we see. Through this inversion of roles, the artist conveys important perspectives on themes of gender, authorship and control.

In 2018, for an editorial feature in the magazine Wallpaper*, Probst created six diptychs shot over the course of a day at an intersection in New York. Each pair of images shows a model in flamboyant clothing amidst passersby, photographed simultaneously from the street and from a higher vantage point. The shifting of the shadows marks the progress of time, and the urban context seems to refer to the work of conceptual artists from the 1960s and 1970s.

The show continues with a work commissioned by Vogue Italia in 2017. For this feature, Probst envisioned a series of close-ups of the famous identical twins Lia and Odette Pavlova, whose faces have been transformed into small paintings by makeup artists. The difference between their portraits is minimal, and our gaze is forced to waver between these two points of view. The final room interrupts the strict compositional order of the previous ones with seven photographs that seem to float on the wall. The irregular arrangement, apparently without rules, is countered by a scene set up in great detail in which several models pose inside the iconic Glass House by Philip Johnson.

Barbara Probst, born in Munich in 1964, studied sculpture and then photography at the Art Academy of Düsseldorf. She presently lives and works in New York and Munich. Her work has been shown at MoMA New York in 2006, in the context of the exhibition “New Photography,” and in many solo shows, including: Kunsthalle Nuremberg (2021); Le Bal, Paris (2019); Centre Pasquart, Bienne (2014); Rudolfinum, Prague (2014); National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen (2013); Oldenburger Kunstverein (2009) and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (2007). Her pieces have been included in the collections of important museums, such as MoMA and the Whitney Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Centre Pompidou, Paris.