Barbara Probst


Barbara Probst is a German contemporary artist whose photographic work consists of multiple images of a single scene, shot simultaneously with several cameras via a radio-controlled system. Using a mix of color and black-and-white film, she poses her subjects, positioning each lens at a different angle, and then triggers the cameras' shutters all at once, creating tableaux of two or more individually framed images. Although the pictures are of the same subject and are taken at the same instant, they provide a range of perspectives. She lives and works in both New York City and Munich. She relocated to New York City in 1997.

Early life and education

Probst was born in Munich. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich and Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany.

Work

Probst experiments with the temporality and point of view of the shot/counter-shot technique of film by presenting multiple photographs of one scene shot simultaneously with several cameras via a radio-controlled release system. As a result, the subject of the work becomes the photographic moment of exposure itself.
Using a radio-controlled release system, or multiple photographers, she simultaneously triggers the shutters of several cameras pointed at the same scene from various viewpoints. The resulting sequences of images suspend time and stretch out the split second. Artistic Director and Publisher of Camera Austria Reinhard Braun writes of this saying:
Moreover, Probst employs backdrops, often enlarged stills from well-known movies or landscapes. This enhances the sense of artifice by presenting multiple locations within the same moment. Furthermore, equipment such as cameras, studio lights, tripods are visible in the crossfire of images. These including the photographer themselves become subjects of the moment.
Artforum Critic Brian Scholis asserts her work disregards photography's standard concept of "decisive moment," and instead references cinema's practice of multiple cameras to create movement and diversion in a "Rashomon-like multiplicity of perspectives".

Selected solo exhibitions

Selected group exhibitions

Collections

Editorial work and fashion campaigns

Selected monographs

  • 2024 Barbara Probst. Subjective Evidence, published Hartmann Projects, edited by Kunstmuseum Luzern und FotoFocus/Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, with texts by Stefan Gronert, Fanni Fetzer, Kevin Moore, Hartmann Books, Stuttgart 2024
  • 2019 The Moment in Space, published by Le Bal, Paris and Hartmann Projects, with an essay by Frederic Paul
  • 2017 12 Moments, published by Editions Xavier Barral, with an essay by Robert Hobbs
  • 2016 12 Moments, published by Hartmann Projects, with an essay by Robert Hobbs
  • 2013 Barbara Probst, published by Hatje Cantz, Germany, with texts by Felicity Lunn, Jens Erdman Rasmussen, and Lynne Tillman, and an interview with the artist by Frédéric Paul
  • 2008 Barbara Probst – Exposures, published by Steidl, Germany and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, with an introduction by Karen Irvine, an interview with Johannes Meinhardt and an essay by David Bate
  • 2002 Barbara Probst, published for exhibition at Cuxhavener Kunstverein, Cuxhaven, Germany, with an essay by Stefan Schessl
  • 1998 Welcome, published for exhibition at Frankfurter Kunstverein, Munich, Germany, with an essay by Thomas Dreher
  • 1998 Through The Looking Glass, published for exhibition at Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Dessau, Dessau, Germany, with an essay by Thomas Dreher
  • 1998 Barbara Probst, published for exhibition at Akademiegalerie, Munich Germany, with a short essay by Michael Hofstetter
  • 1998 InExpectation, published for exhibition at Binder & Rid Gallery, Munich, Germany, with an essay by Thomas Dreher
  • 1994 Barbara Probst, My Museum, published by Kulturreferat München, Munich, Germany