Marisa Baumgartner
b. Washington, D.C.
STATEMENT
As an Austrian American I grew up between two countries, religions and cultures. Duality forms the basis for my practice as a visual artist. He/she, black/white, gay/straight, yin/yang, positive/negative, analog/digital, visible/invisible: I am interested in the formal use of the binary as a tool to mask and reveal notions of how we occupy, perceive and interpret our world.
I have long conversed with the concept of using positive and negative space to experience a photographic image in an unfamiliar way. My work challenges the way we see, causing us to find abstract shapes or forms in the space between. I use the pixel in photography and the medium of painting to discuss the relationship between the two disciplines: an attempt at deconstructing abstraction in an art historical context and painterly manner via the camera lens.
My formal process of obstruction reveals political discussions of the traces left behind from climate change, emotional reactions of what we hide/show of ourselves to others and to ourselves and psychological layers of distance in how we inhabit our environment. Over the past decade I have embedded into my practice my personal fascination and fear of the digital Internet age of online cameras and exchanges of images with the use of found surveillance webcams and public domain satellite pictures. I create images that are largely white or black, creating a conversation with the “white” and “black” painting of Minimalism. I use painted gold leaf on a NASA satellite image captured and manipulated by scientists to study the effects climate change has had on the water volume of rivers because visually it relates to a Gustav Klimt or Egon Schiele painting; thus a tool for
using beauty to comment on the terrifying environmental crises of today.
EDUCATION
Yale University, New Haven, CT, Master of Fine Arts, Photography, 2006
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, R.I. Bachelor of Fine Arts, Photography, 2002
Speos Photographic Institute, Paris, France, 1999
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018
Standing in the Eye, High Noon, New York, NY
2014
As the Crow Flies, Galerie D’(A), Lausanne, Switzerland
2013
Opéra, Opéra de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
2011
Fade to White, University of the Arts Museum, Rosenwald Wolf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Grande Avenues, American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, Washington, D.C.
2010
Upstream, Video Tank, Zürich, Switzerland
Under Construction “Conversation With Architecture”, collaboration with architect, Philippe Meyer of Meyer Architecte, Vesenaz, Switzerland
Helvetica, Galerie D’(A), Lausanne, Switzerland
2009
Marisa Baumgartner, L MD Galerie, Paris, France
2006
Marisa Baumgartner, Domo Gallery, Summit, N.J
New Work, Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton, New York, NY
2004
Organized Chaos, Gallery 10G, New York, NY
2002
Photographs Construct, Red Eye Gallery, Providence, R.I.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019
Welcome, Liz Lidgett Gallery, Des Moines, IA
2017
The Painted Desert, High Noon, New York, NY
2013
Summer Show, Galerie D’A), Lausanne, Switzerland
2012
Surface Tension, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock, NY
2011
Silent Significance, L MD Galerie, Paris, France
MOVE!, L MD Galerie, Paris, France
2010
Transformative Travel Experience, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI and Speos Photographic Institute, Paris, France
2009
New York Group Show, L MD Galerie, Paris, France
2008
239 years (divided by 9 artists), Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
2007
White Club Space #2, Space Odyssee, Salzburg, Austria
Marisa Baumgartner and Amy Park, Thacher, Proffitt and Wood, New York, NY
Group Show, Baumgartner Gallery, New York, NY
2006
Yale MFA Photography 2006, Baumgartner Gallery, New York, NY
MFA Photography Thesis Show, Yale School of Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Joint Venture: Selections from the Ramer Collection and Selected Photographs, curated by Matthias Geiger and Renny Pritikin, joint exhibition between the Pence Gallery and the Richard L. Nelson Gallery at UC Davis, Davis, CA
2005
MFA 2nd Year Group Show, Yale School of Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
2004
MFA 1st Year Group Show, Yale School of Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
New Voices, New Visions... W Hotels Goes Gallery, benefit traveling show and auction, W Hotels, San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, New York, NY
Unframed First Look, curated by Cindy Sherman, Jack Pierson & Adam Fuss, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, NY
2002
New Works, Woods Gerry Gallery, Providence, R.I.
2000
Celebration of a Decade, curated by Anna Strickland, Red Eye Gallery, Providence, R.I.
1999
Photography Biennial, Woods Gerry Gallery, Providence, R.I.
1998
Scholastic Awards Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
AWARDS, PUBLICATIONS, RESIDENCIES
Note Buena Loft residency, Cadaqués, Spain, 2012
Commission, The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, 2012
"Marisa Baumgartner, FACES," by Philippe Meyer, Arrêt Sur Image(s), article, Fall 2011
“Grande Avenues,” review, Art in America, June/July 2011
"Reviewed: Marisa Baumgartner and Julie Linows at the American University Museum," review, Washington City Paper, March 7, 2011
"New York in Photographs," edited by Marla Hamburg Kennedy, published by Rizzoli, 2011
"Flash>, Marisa Baumgartner at Galerie D’(A)," article, Artline Magazine, October 2011, 2010
"Galerie D’(A), Helvetica," review, Guideloisirs, September 11, 2010
“Taking Abstraction to Its Logical Extreme,” David Gross, review, The New York Sun, July 13, 2006
"Yale School of Art MFA Photography," Book
"Joint Venture, Selections from the Ramer Collection and Selected Photographs," Catalogue
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Aspen Collection, USA
Opéra de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Laurent Perrier Foundation, France
American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, Washington, D.C.
Cindy Sherman, New York, NY
Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton, New York, NY
Bernstein, Linowitz, Berger and Grossman, New York, NY
Helaine Allen, New York, NY
Nilani Trent Fine Art, New York, NY