Photos of Tina Barney displayed at the Museum of Modern Art (Essay Sample)

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Art & Architecture
13th December, 2014
Tina Barney - Sunday New York Times, 1982
The photos of Tina Barney displayed at the Museum of Modern Art usually indicates or at least the first impression created is that of upper middle-class life The houses portrayed are either rural or suburban with decent, healthy, sensitive, people in the portraits. They exude a feeling of outdoor barbeques, pink bathrooms, large television screens, which most up class Americans and elites experience for most part of their lives. Tina Barney claims that these are part of her life. She expressed this in an interview for an article in the Museum’s quarterly magazine MoMA CITATION The147 \l 16393 (The Mueseum of Modern Art). Her characters keep shifting their identity effortlessly and are drawn from family and friends. She keeps insisting that she needs to maintain the dignity of the characters in her photographs.
Tina Barney is deeply engrossed and involved in her world. This is very explicit in her work ‘Tim, Phil, and I,’ the picture in which she is seen standing outdoor, flanked by her two sons, holding the cable release that has just taken her picture in a 4x5 view camera. She is seen pointing at it in an accusatory manner at the glass of beer that one of them is holding with two of these youngsters indulging in some kind of a banter.
The high point of Tina Barney’s work is that nothing is straightforward or transparent. Everything happens through a series of reflections, and everything is in well layered meanings. The exhibition was coordinated by Catherine Evans from the Department of photography from the museum.
In her latest work, there is greater conflict that is seen and lesser number of characters. In one of the photographs, the shears that are seen cutting the roses could almost cut through the nose of the viewer. Though on the surface, the impression that is created by her images is that of a sense of family and a deep sense of respect. However, underneath this, there is very clear sense of deep-rooted insecurity and all those strong under currents. The conflict in those pictures run very deep and almost seem unchangeable. There seems to be lot of space in the pictures, but there is never any space. There is lot of sunlight, but windows are always seen shut. The conflict is so apparent in each of those pictures, but very beautifully portrayed. The sense of social order is impeccable, but in the same sense there is a sense of deep beauty. She is not averse to capturing and portraying several of the social conflicts as in the Olympia CITATION Mic90 \l 16393 (Brenson). Manat and Degas brought into art, what was seen as better part of photography. These kind of realistic projections of art is assumed to be seen convincingly possible only in art photography caught in candid action.
In an interview, Tin Barney was candid that she was wanting to photography the family since 1977, but she did not know what her objective was. The truth that hit upon her was that the American family was beginning to disintegrate and that there was lack of emotional attachment and affection between the various members of the family. The Sunday New York Times seems to have made an impression on Tina Barney and she compares it with the American family. She does not like her pictures being typecast and she wanted her upper-class pictures to be very rich. She realized that her world was unusual and precious as it had all the quality and beauty, but lacked emotional fulfilment.
Tina Barney, probably for the very first time blew up her family photograph to 4 ft. x 5 ft., and she is known for her large scale colour portraits. She started her photography drawing from her grandfather when she was a small child. She went on to formally study the art history at the Spence School in Manhattan. She went to Italy to further study art. It was in 1973, that she moved to Sun Valley, Idaho, where she started formally studying photography. She worked and learnt photography at Sun Valley Center for Arts and Humanity, and completed several workshops with several famous photographers like Roger Mertin, Joyce Niemanas, John Pfahl, Robert Cumming, among others.
Tina Barney often makes her very wealthy family subject of her photography. Most often, her works are candid pictures. Her works have been presented at a variety of theatres. She is also accused of being theatrical. She expresses her works as exploring dynamics of interpersonal relationships. Very often, central to her pictures is domineering male figure. Most of her pictures, despite showing depth and space, are very contradictory with closed and blinded windows. There are very many apparent contradictions in all her pictures, despite the opulence of the lifestyle, there is a serious feeling of constriction and lack of even breathing air in her pictures.
Despite the claim of Tina Barney that all her pictures are more autobiographical in nature and exude the upper class and elitist image - all her works reflect a deep sense of disconnect with the elite. There is also a constant sense of conflict in all her images. The conflict seems to be ...