Exposition de Tina Barney, Early Works

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

Born in 1945, Tina Barney is known for her large-scale colour compositions exploring family dynamics and the social codes of privileged milieus. The six works on display belong to an earlier period of her practice. Made during summer stays in Rhode Island, they reveal 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 influenced by Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand, whom she regards as ‘masters of unstaged photography’, Tina Barney favoured the snapshot and direct observation at that time. Black and white allowed her to focus on the material qualities of the image, bringing out textures, fabrics, hair, glass surfaces and atmospheric effects.

The faces often remain out of frame, leaving full room for gestures, postures and clothing. Suits, white dresses and carefully arranged hairstyles thus become the visible signs of social belonging. These foundational works already reveal the themes that will run through her entire oeuvre: the conventions governing human relationships and the subtle structures underlying family life.