Virginie Barré: bauhaus

Following her participation in a number of group exhibitions at the gallery, Parker's Box is delighted to present Virginie Barré's first solo show in New York.

In her newest work, Virginie Barré has focused on what at first seems an unlikely marriage- that of the rich cultural capital of North American Indians, in fusion with the very particular esthetic of the 1920's Bauhaus. In the world of Virginie Barré, the inscrutability that radiates respectively from these contrasting currents makes them the happiest of bedfellows. The ancient truths and radical rationalism of Native American existence are readily embraced in the corridors of power of the Bauhaus, while the tribal elders of numerous native nations instantly recognize the spiritual dimension of Bauhaus design. As expressed by the French critic, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, discussing Virginie Barré's recent work: A whole array of Sioux, Apache and Cheyenne warriors peacefully invade the monuments of modernity. The architecture of Walter Gropius, costumes and masks of Oscar Schlemmer, and the furniture and objects of Marcel Breuer are tribalized, ritualized and carried like trophies according to an ethnological turnaround that has less to do with visual antagonism than with a redistribution of the powers of reason.

Virginie Barré
bauhaus