Robert Barry
Robert Barry (born March 9, 1936) is an American artist. Since 1967, Barry has produced non-material works of art, installations, and performance art using a variety of otherwise invisible media. In 1968, Robert Barry is quoted as saying "Nothing seems to me the most potent thing in the world."
Robert Barry
- Name
- Robert Barry
- Born
- March 9, 1936
- Birthplace
- The Bronx, New York
- Education
- Hunter College
- Known for
- Conceptual art, Idea art
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- painter · illustrator · draftsperson · photographer · artist
- Fields
- conceptual art
- Languages
- English
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Robert Barry (born March 9, 1936) is an American artist. Since 1967, Barry has produced non-material works of art, installations, and performance art using a variety of otherwise invisible media. In 1968, Robert Barry is quoted as saying "Nothing seems to me the most potent thing in the world."
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Robert Barry. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
gnd · 124999255 · wikidata · Q477373
In this article
Biography
Biography
Robert Barry studied at Hunter College. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is conceptual art. Employment is recorded with Hunter College. Work by Robert Barry is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Institute of Chicago, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst and New Mexico Museum of Art.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Robert Barry • Born — March 9, 1936 • Birthplace — The Bronx, New York • Education — Hunter College • Known for — Conceptual art, Idea art
Life and career
Life and career
Barry was born and grew up in The Bronx, New York City. A graduate of Hunter College, he studied there under artists William Baziotes and Robert Motherwell, later joining the college's faculty. Since 1967, Barry has produced non-material works of art, installations, and performance art. Barry moved to Teaneck, New Jersey in 1974, with his wife and two sons.
Work
Work
Barry's work focuses on escaping the previously known physical limits of the art object in order to express the unknown or unperceived. Consequently, Barry has explored a number of different avenues toward defining the usually unseen space around objects, rather than producing the objects themselves. "On Golden Square" has two different levels of perception: the light area, visible from distance, and the golden square in the center visible only from close. Major nonvisible works from his early period include "Carrier Wave", in which Barry used the carrier waves of a radio station for a prescribed length of time "not as a means of transmitting information, but rather as an object.", Radiation Piece, and Inert Gas Piece, in which Barry opened various containers of inert gases in different settings before groups of spectators, such as a canister of helium released in a desert. In the late 1960s Barry's work was published in 0 to 9 magazine, an avant-garde journal which experimented with language and meaning-making. These pieces were blank, only appearing in the table of contents. When asked about his piece for exhibition "Prospect '69," his response was "The piece consists of the ideas that people will have from reading this interview... The piece in its entirety is unknowable because it exists in the mind of so many people. Each person can really know that part which is in his own mind."
Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Barry's work has been shown in international events such as the Paris Biennale (1971), Documenta, Kassel (1972), and the Venice Biennale (1972). He is represented in Paris and New York by Yvon Lambert Gallery. • "SOMETHING IN A BOX by Robert Barry and other things in boxes by Philippe Cazal, Braco Dimitrijevic, Paul-Armand Gette and UNTEL", 2014, galerie mfc-michèle didier, Paris. • "Taking your time - Robert Barry", 2012, gallery mfc-michèle didier, Paris.
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself.
Books
* *
Collections
Barry is included in the permanent collections of renowned museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
Institutional database
Wikidata, structured authority record Q477373: Robert BarryWikimedia Foundation
Institutional witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Photography
11,392 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Robert AdrianPhotographer
- Robert AlexanderPhotographer
- Robert Alexander FallaPhotographer
- Robert AshtonPhotographer
- Robert BeanPhotographer
- Robert BeneckePhotographer
- Robert BesankoPhotographer
- Robert BirkbyPhotographer
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Robert Barry?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.