DIA ANNOUNCES NEW WEB-BASED PROJECT BY ARTIST ROSA BARBA
Latest in Dia’s series of Artists’ Projects for the web launches May 29, 2008
Dia Art Foundation announces the launch of Vertiginous Mapping, a web-based project by artist Rosa Barba, the latest in Dia’s ongoing series of online artworks. The project can be seen beginning May 29 at www.diaart.org/barba . An opening reception will be held at Dia on Thursday, May 29, 2008, from 6 to 8 pm on the fifth floor at 535 West 22nd Street, New York City. >
In Vertiginous Mapping, Barba presents a collection of film, images, texts, and audio that she compiled and created while on a residency in Sweden. She shot 16mm film in a city north of the Arctic circle whose inhabitants face the prospect of having to relocate as the result of ground instability caused by massive mining in the area. As with several of her previous works, including Outwardly from the Earth’s Center, 2006, a film about inhabitants of an island trying to stop the seaward drift of their homes, Barba builds upon an unlikely but actual situation. Utilizing conventions of documentary film-making, she weaves together new and historical footage with materials she located in municipal archives, including documentation of Sweden’s switch from driving on the left to the right side of the road in 1967. Rather than building upon a central plot, Barba prefers to present a labyrinth of information, altering and fabricating elements along the way.
Barba is known for her film installations which examine elements of cinematography such as subtitling, projection methods, sound and image. These works vary widely in how they are presented; for example Machine Vision Seekers, 2003, consists of the lines of a script from a projector that swings its image between two corners of a room, while It’s Gonna Happen, 2005, is a film with two narrations, one audio and the other projected as text. Her diverse works present situations that invite speculation and require the viewer to fill in unstated details and overarching narratives, a playful yet almost unsettling experience.
Rosa Barba
Rosa Barba studied at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne and at the Rijksakademie voor
Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. She has had exhibitions recently at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin (2008), Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (2007), Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz (2007), the Baltic Art Center in Visby, Sweden (2006) and in the Kasseler Kunstverein, Fridericianium (2005). Barba lives and works in Cologne and Amsterdam. More information at www.rosabarba.com
Artists’ Projects for the Web
Dia initiated a series of web-based works in early 1995, becoming one of the first arts organizations to foster the use of the world wide web as an artistic and conceptual medium. Dia’s collection of web projects currently numbers twenty-eight. Previous projects include Ezra Johnson’s Wrestling with the Blob Beast (2008); Wilfredo Prieto’s A Moment of Silence (2007); Maja Bajevic’s I Wish I was Born in a Hollywood Movie (2006); Dorothy Cross’s Foxglove: digitalis purpurea (2005); Ana Torfs’ Approximations/Contradictions (2004); Allen Ruppersberg’s The New Five Foot Shelf (2004); Glenn Ligon’s Annotations (2003); Shimabuku’s Moon Rabbit (2001); Stephen Vitiello’s Tetrasomia (2000); Diller + Scofidio’s Refresh (1998); and Komar and Melamid’s The Most Wanted Paintings (1995), among others. All may be visited at Dia’s website, www.diaart.org
Funding
Funding for this project has been provided the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, the Kunststiftung NRW, Düsseldorf, and the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam. Beverages for the launch event compliments Brooklyn Brewery.
Dia Art Foundation
A nonprofit institution founded in 1974, Dia Art Foundation is internationally renowned for initiating, supporting, presenting, and preserving art projects. Dia presents public programs and its permanent collection of works from the 1960s through the present at Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries, in New York’s Hudson Valley. In the fall of 2007 Dia initiated a partnership with The Hispanic Society of America in which Dia presents commissions and projects by contemporary artists in the Hispanic Society’s galleries. Dia is actively engaged in a search for a permanent home for its New York City initiatives. Additionally, Dia maintains long-term, site-specific projects in the western United States, in New York City, and in Bridgehampton on Long Island. For additional public information, visit www.diaart.org
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For additional information or materials please contact
Ashley Tickle, Dia Art Foundation, New York City, 212.293.5518 or atickle@diaart.org
