Ground 95.5

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Artist Uta Barth (American, born Germany, 1958)American, born Germany, 1958

CultureAmerican

Titles

Ground 95.5

Date1995

Place depictedLos Angeles, California, United States

MediumChromogenic print

DimensionsImage: 19 1/8 × 16 1/16 in. (48.6 × 40.8 cm)
Overall: 19 1/8 × 16 1/16 × 1 7/8 in. (48.6 × 40.8 × 4.8 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Burlington Resources / Meridian Oil and Twentieth-Century department funds

Object number97.59

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionBoth subject and setting—or figure and ground—convey the message and meaning of photography. A photograph of a woman, for instance, is given meaning by her placement in a library; the image is understood as a portrait of a scholar. Uta Barth draws attention to this relationship by removing one of these elements. She focused her camera on the unoccupied foreground, a space usually reserved for the portrait sitter, leaving only the blurry background in the photographic frame. By removing the subject, Barth forces the viewer to reconsider often-ignored elements and environments that nonetheless add meaning to our lives.
Provenance[Lawing Gallery, Houston]; purchased by MFAH, 1997.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Signed in black ink, verso of panel: 2/8 Uta Barth 1995.
Inscription: Labels, verso: Uta Barth 1995/Ground #95.5/Edition #2/8/chromogenic print on panel. // LAWING/Uta Barth/Ground 95.5 1995/chromogenic print on panel/19 1/2 x 16 1/4 inches ed. 2/8/214 Travis Street Houston 77002 TEL 713-222-2025 FAX 713-222-2050." "The surface of this work is very fragile. Handle by wooden edges only. Work should be wrapped in clean cotton fabric and then in plastic bubble-pack. The surface and edge of the laminated print can be cleaned with PEC-12 Photographic Emulsion Cleaner."

Signed in black ink, verso of panel: 2/8 Uta Barth 1995.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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