Art Basel Paris: PREMISE Sector with Robert Barry | Booth 1.J1

For Art Basel Paris 2025, Martine Aboucaya proposes a daring solo presentation by Robert Barry titled " January-September,1969", realized for the first time in France.

Robert Barry
"January-September, 1969 »

curated by Mathieu Copeland

Under Mathieu Copeland's scientific supervision, five historical non-material artworks experimenting with intangible materials such as radiation, inert gases, magnetism, telepathy and psyches, all dated from 1969 are reactivated chronologically. 
Shifting the classical rules of visual art in showing an artistic gesture consisting in emptying the exhibition space rather than filling it, Barry will occupy the entire booth with a different invisible work for each day of Art Basel Paris. 

These installations of similar appearance offer an infinite possibility of interpretations and even challenges to the place that hosts them, institution or private collection.

Conceptual art is - much more than a revolution in the visual forms - a fundamental rethinking of the function of art and artists in a changing cultural context. 
Focusing on escaping the previously known physical limits of the art object in order to express the unknown or unperceived, Barry has explored a number of different avenues toward defining the usually unseen space around objects rather than producing the objects themselves. Immeasurable and without limit, the realm of the unseen is as sublime it gets.

Our proposal is the result of a great complicity with the artist : the deep desire of showing historical works using simple gestures as well as the one of exploring the idea of "nothing" led us to this radical statement, showing too its own economy, experimentation and freedom.