Barbara Bloom Exhibition: "The Weather"

Opening on Saturday, June 6th @ 11am
Old Point Schoolhouse, 1555 Village Lane, Orient

Fridays 2pm to 5pm, Saturdays 11am to 5pm, and Sundays 2pm to 5pm

Absence and its depiction are ongoing themes of exploration in the work of Barbara Bloom. Flirtations between visibility and invisibility have made frequent appearances in the form of fingerprints, lipstick traces, watermarks, stains, shadows, footprints, erasures, redactions…

Another equally strong aspect of her work has been its relationship to literature. Bloom has said that she was perhaps meant to be a writer, probably a novelist, but somehow ended up standing in the wrong line, and inadvertently “signed up” to be a visual artist.

The absent and the literary come together in her exhibition "The Weather," in Oysterponds Historical Society's Old Point Schoolhouse. A long-time resident of Orient, Bloom has for years collected paintings of the sea – some sublime, some adequate, some less so. For this exhibition, she has chosen a variety of seascape paintings from the OHS collection, and has lined the walls of the Schoolhouse with works titled "The Sea, in Part": these seascapes in which the sea and the sky are partially obstructed from view by mats that reveal only glimpses of their drama or calm.

Additionally, there are carpets in a subtle shade of gray-green-blue, hovering at varying heights above the floor. The carpets have raised-dot patterns forming Braille texts, each with a different literary description of the weather. The exhibition accentuates the complexity of seeing. A blind person could read the carpet text, but would not be able to see what was being described, or see the seascapes. A sighted person cannot read the Braille, and could see only snippets of the seascapes, all leaving much to the imagination.

Barbara Bloom is an artist living in NYC and Orient who uses photography, installation, and books as means of examining issues of collecting, museology, design, taste, and our investment in the objects with which we surround ourselves.

Bloom has received numerous honors including the Venice Biennale Due Mille Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, Getty Research Institute Fellowship. Her solo exhibitions include ones at the Serpentine Gallery, London; Los Angeles-MoCA; MoMA; The Metropolitan Museum; The International Center of Photography; The Jewish Museum, New York.

The Barbara Bloom Exhibition is made possible in part through the generous support of DG Carpentry of Long Island. Their dedication to the local community makes this event possible, and we extend our sincere gratitude for their support.

www.DGcarpentryLI.com
320 Flanders Rd., Unit 5
Riverhead, NY 11901
Phone: (631) 346-8220
Email: dgcarpentrylongisland@gmail.com