Barry Anderson
Barry Anderson’s work in video and photography has been shown extensively around the country and the world, with recent exhibitions in New York, California, Texas, and England. His work is included in the collections of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, the Everson Museum of Art, and Light Work, as well as other numerous corporate and private collections. A monograph of his video work was published by Light Work in 2009. He received his MFA in Photography and Digital Media from Indiana University Bloomington and his BFA in Photography from the University of Texas at Austin.
The majority of the recent work in video is created in part from appropriated American advertising images of the 1950s to 1970s, an era which historically represents a massive change in the cultural landscape of the country. This period is not referenced out of a simple sense of nostalgia but rather for an historical counterpoint to our present era of increasing global homogenization.
Anderson’s continuing interest in truly “motion pictures” relates more to the history of painting and collage than that of video and cinema. This is heightened by the use of motifs commonly related to trance and psychedelia such as hyper-color, limitless space, and looping rhythm. Here, these motifs are not intended to create a state of euphoria or release from reality, but rather to focus intently on the present moment. They are also used to further question typical expectations of the video medium both in popular culture (news reporting, narrative entertainment, etc.) and in the contemporary art world (conceptual performance, experimental narrative, etc.)