Barbara Probst

Barbara Probst’s working method rests on a technical premise that sounds almost simple: a radio-controlled shutter release fires as many as fourteen cameras at once, set at different distances and angles around a single scene. The resulting exposures share only the instant of their release. Standpoints, framings and photographic materials differ, so the pictures refuse to settle into one style, one genre or one formal family.

This Hatje Cantz volume, published in October 2013, follows that method and its consequences across 240 pages and 254 photographs. Probst, born in Munich in 1964, photographs the shifting perspectives and fleeting incidents of urban life; the multi-camera apparatus turns observation into a question about photography itself, about what a viewpoint is, what a frame leaves out, and how a single moment can be plural. The publisher notes that the arrangement of the photographs produces dramaturgies drawing on several photographic genres at once.

The book carries texts by Lynne Tillman, Jens Erdman Rasmussen and Felicity Lunn, and a contribution by Frédéric Paul; Uwe Koch and Silke Fahnert designed it. The publisher listed presentations at the National Museum of Photography in Copenhagen, from October 2013 to January 2014, and at CentrePasquArt in Biel, from February to April 2014. The English-language hardcover measures 246 by 300 mm and connects this account of the work with the 2013–14 exhibition programme.

For a collector, the interest lies in what the series format does. Each exposure offers a partial account of a scene, and the argument lives in the relations among pictures made in the same fraction of a second, in the different distances, angles and photographic materials within a group of simultaneous views. Probst’s subject is the photographic image as an unstable, negotiated thing, and this sequence-based structure is exactly what a gathering of the photographs can demonstrate.

In her photo series, Barbara Probst (*1964 in Munich) not only plays with the changing perspectives and fleeting moments of urban life, she also poses fundamental questions about photography and imagery. Using a shutter release mechanism controlled by radio waves, the artist can use up to fourteen cameras to simultaneously shoot a scene from a distance and from numerous angles. Together, the various camera standpoints and framings as well as different objects and film material result in a series of views that are not bound by stylistic features, the same genre, or formal proximity. The images are held together only by the point in time at which the shutter was released. Yet the arrangement of the photographs is so sophisticated that it creates intriguing dramaturgies that make reference to a variety of different photographic genres.
 
Exhibition schedule: The National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen, October 3, 2013–January 11, 2014 | CentrePasquArt, Biel, February 2–April 4, 2014

Beiträge von: Frédéric Paul
Designed by: Uwe Koch, Silke Fahnert
Texts by: Lynne Tillman, Jens Erdman Rasmussen, Felicity Lunn
English
October 2013, 240 Pages , 254 Photos
hardcover
246mm x 300mm
ISBN:978-3-7757-3711-1

Publisher page editorial text:
In her photo series, Barbara Probst (*1964 in Munich) not only plays with the changing perspectives and fleeting moments of urban life, she also poses fundamental questions about photography and imagery. Using a shutter release mechanism controlled by radio waves, the artist can use up to fourteen cameras to simultaneously shoot a scene from a distance and from numerous angles. Together, the various camera standpoints and framings as well as different objects and film material result in a series of views that are not bound by stylistic features, the same genre, or formal proximity. The images are held together only by the point in time at which the shutter was released. Yet the arrangement of the photographs is so sophisticated that it creates intriguing dramaturgies that make reference to a variety of different photographic genres.
 
Exhibition schedule: The National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen, October 3, 2013–January 11, 2014 | CentrePasquArt, Biel, February 2–April 4, 2014

Publisher source ↗