Cara Barer Exhibition
Klompching Gallery
[Image: Iditarod Trail © Cara Barer]
This event has ended.
Klompching Gallery presents a solo exhibition of new work by Cara Barer. This will be the artist’s second solo exhibition with the Klompching Gallery, and will feature eight artworks ranging in size from 24”x24” to 48”x48” – all made between 2014 and 2015.
The artist’s creative process includes the transformation of outdated, abandoned and obsolete books into coiled, crumpled and sculptural objects. Following this labor-intensive reconfiguration, she photographs them and presents the final artworks as large-scale pigment prints – lush in color, highly detailed and impressive. Set against a backdrop of black, we see the edges of pages that show the book’s paper in varying states of flexibility – stiff, strong, soft, delicate – with each becoming a fantastical dance in color and form.
Through this process of re-imagination, the books segue into a carefully considered commentary on their changing role of how society accesses and values knowledge in a technologically advanced context. Ultimately, Barer’s work questions the value of the book itself.
“I transform books into art by sculpting them, dyeing them and then through the medium of photography presenting them anew as objects of beauty. I am attempting to blur the line between objects, sculpture, and photography. The way we choose to research and find information is also in an evolution. I hope to raise questions about these changes, the ephemeral and fragile nature in which we now obtain knowledge, and the future of books.”—Cara Barer
With this new series of photographs, Barer also expands her attention toward cartography. Using maps as the primary source material, she paints, rips and tears them before binding them into a book form and making the resulting photograph. As with the status of books, she calls attention to the increasing obsolescence of traditional paper-based maps, in a world easily travelled with GPS.
Cara Barer (b. 1956) lives and works in Houston, Texas. She is a graduate of the Art Institute of Houston, the Unviersity of Houston and the Galssell School of Art. Barer has been represented in numerous exhibitions across the US, and has had her work reproduced in several publications, including Art Made From Books: Altered, Sculpted, Carved (Chronicle Books, 2013). Collections holding her work include VISA, UCLA Special Collections, Danielle Steel, Bloomingdales, Lehigh University, Nordstrom’s Nationwide, Wells Fargo Bank and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.
Media
Schedule
from January 09, 2016 to February 27, 2016
Opening Reception on 2016-01-09 from 18:00 to 20:00