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Robert Barry

Study for Wallpiece, 1983

Description

Maker

Title

Study for Wallpiece

Year

1983

Medium

Blue acrylic paint and graphite on paper

Materials/Techniques

Materials

Supports

Dimensions

33.3 x 31.4 cm (13 1/8 x 12 3/8 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Initialed in the bottom left: RB. Dated in the bottom right: '83.

Type

Credit

The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services

Object Number

2009.59.1

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection

July 20 - December 2, 2012

This drawing from 1983 is a study for a full-scale work exhibited the same year at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. At the center of the design is the image of a tree, barely perceptible under layers of brilliant blue paint. The words inscribed around the perimeter of the composition act as an extension of the branches and roots of the tree. The open-ended and tentative nature of these phrases—especially “seems,” “not often,” and “allowed to”—suggest undefined actions or an unknown state of being.

The Primacy of Paper

January 15 - June 20, 2010

The wall piece in this study was among several blue walls realized full-scale in a 1983 exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York and subsequently painted over. In all of these works, Barry used a carefully orchestrated presentation of words, shapes, colors, and images to build a conceptual artwork which is nonetheless boldly visual. The core of this design is a drawing of a tree, almost fully obscured under a blinding layer of bright blue paint. Against this backdrop, words and phrases radiate out in a circle like roots or branches, suggesting the fundamental role of language in art. These ambiguous and poetic fragments—“allowed to,” “then,” “seems”—resemble a cluster of incomplete thoughts or ideas. As viewers slowly read the phrases and perceive the subtle under-drawing, the words generate an endless variety of new associations and interpretations, leading to multiple open-ended conversations with the artist.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Study for Wallpiece with the accession number of 2009.59.1. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.