Robert Barry
(1936 - )
Untitled
1980
Tempera and black ink on paper
7 1/4 x 7 1/8 in. (18.5 x 18.0 cm)
Collection of the Akron Art Museum
Gift of The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a National Gift program of Contemporary Art, is announced by the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
2009.30.2
More Information
Robert Barry is a conceptual artist who is interested in how words acquire meaning. He highlights the importance of context to the meaning of words by arranging them in ways that make their meaning ambiguous. In Untitled, Barry contrasts the precise lettering of the words with the organic form of a tree embedded in the painting. At the same time, he links the words to the tree through metaphor. The tree form is often used as a way of charting relationships between words or names.
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