September 28, 2018 – January 13, 2019

Remai Modern is pleased to host Rosa Barba’s first major solo museum project in Canada. The exhibition features a newly-commissioned filmic sculpture, in addition to a selection of her recent work. The commission Send Me Sky, Henrietta (2018) is part of a series inspired by the Berlin-based artist’s ongoing research into astronomy and cinema.

Barba shot Send Me Sky, Henrietta at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The piece is dedicated to American astronomer Henrietta S. Leavitt and her research on observation, quantification and calculation of the colour and luminosity of stars. Works in the exhibition also include the significant installations The Color Out of Space (2015), and Sight Enables Us to Appreciate Distance (2013/2016), as well as additional works in film, installation, sculpture and print. Together, the open and dynamic arrangement creates a fictional library, a term Barba uses to describe her working method.

The exhibition also includes the newest work in Barba’s White Museum series, which began in 2010. Using a 70-mm projector, the piece projects a blank film onto the landscape outside the museum, in this case the South Saskatchewan River. Previous iterations of White Museum have illuminated landscapes in New York, São Paulo and Brussels.

The exhibition is accompanied by a new issue of Printed Cinema, a publication that has been created alongside Barba’s film projects since 2004, an ongoing attempt by the artist to reveal and unravel the cinematic organism, stressing the ephemeral nature of video footage by remaking it as printed matter.

SEND ME SKY is accompanied by an extensive live program, including regular screenings of Barba’s film Disseminate and Hold (2016) and a four-part film series chosen by Barba.
 
Curated by Sandra Guimarães Director of Programs & Chief Curator