Barbara Bloom Biography

Bloom is interested in exploring the nature of looking and perceiving through her work, often drawing inspiration from literature—she effectively refers to herself as 'a novelist who inadvertently ended up a visual artist'. Bloom's most recent exhibition at Capitain Petzel, Works on Paper, on Paper, is filled with references to her heroes of literature and film — from Vladimir Nabokov and Jane Austen, to Jean Seberg and Marilyn Monroe. Her series 'The Weather' and 'Works for the Blind' from her earlier show at Capitain Petzel, both take specific literary texts as points of departure, subsequently relaying them in braille through installations and multimedia photographic works. Bloom works with elements such as shadows, traces, broken objects, and watermarks amongst other things, to investigate the visible and invisible, the absent and unseen, or what she calls 'visual innuendos'.

In 2020, Bloom will have a solo show at the Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark and in 2022 a large scale commission from The Shed, New York. Her other solo exhibitions include MoMA, New York; Project Art Centre, Dublin; The Jewish Museum, New York; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art, LA; Serpentine Gallery, London. In 2020, Bloom will also participate in a group show at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig. Her other group shows include Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Kunsthalle Wien; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, among others. Her work can be found in public collections such as the Dutch National Collection, The Hague, International Center of Photography, New York, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Museum of Contemporary Art, LA, Helsinki Museum of Modern Art, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Art Institute of Chicago, The New School, New York, ARTER, Istanbul.

Text courtesy Capitain Petzel.