News

Johanna Fateman

Barbara Probst

The New Yorker

1/1/2020

In early 2000, this German artist (who is based in Munich and New York) photographed herself, using a strobe light and twelve cameras, on a midtown Manhattan rooftop at night. The resulting images—a mix of color and black-and-white—are now on view in an installation titled “Exposure #1: N.Y.C., 545 8th Avenue, 01.07.00, 10:37 p.m.” Probst captured herself at the height of a graceful jump—as well as her equipment, the roof’s parapet, and the glittering city beyond—from a variety of distances and angles. The multipart work wraps around the small gallery to dramatic effect, simultaneously bringing viewers close to the artist and stationing them, voyeuristically, in the shadows. It’s striking how differently these perspectives render one strobe-lit moment: alternately glamorous, desolate, or forensic.