PhotoSaintGermain-Tina Barney

Tina Barney

Zander Galerie Paris is pleased to announce an exhibition devoted to Tina Barney's early black-and-white photographs. Rediscovered by the artist while delving back into her archives during the pandemic, these rarely shown images offer an intimate glimpse of East Coast American society in the late 1970s.

Born in 1945, Tina Barney is renowned for her large color compositions exploring family dynamics and the social codes of privileged backgrounds. The six works on view belong to an earlier period in her practice. Created during summer stays in Rhode Island, they bear witness to a more spontaneous approach, which the artist herself compared to "sketches that a painter might make in preparation for a more ambitious composition".

Working with a 35 mm camera and nurtured by the influence of Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand, whom she considers "masters of un-staged photography", Tina Barney prioritized the snapshot and direct observation. Black and white allowed her to focus on the material qualities of the image, bringing to the fore textures, fabrics, hair, glass surfaces, and atmospheric effects. Faces often remain outside the frame, leaving full prominence to gestures, postures, and clothing. Suits, white dresses, and carefully crafted hairstyles thus become visible markers of social belonging. These seminal works already reveal the themes that would run through her entire oeuvre: the conventions governing human relationships and the subtle structures underpinning the family sphere.

This exhibition takes place within the framework of the PhotoSaintGermain festival. Organized in the heart of Paris, in the iconic Saint‐Germain‐des‐Prés neighborhood, PhotoSaintGermain is an annual festival dedicated to promoting photographic creation.

PhotoSaintGermain offers a free and freely accessible exhibition tour across a selection of museums, cultural centers, galleries, and bookstores on the Left Bank. This tour highlights a sharp and eclectic program designed by associated galleries, as well as several original exhibitions and novel projects imagined and produced by the festival.