Barbara Bloom
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Biography
Born 1951 in Los Angeles, CA
Lives and works in New York
Over the course of several decades, Barbara Bloom has developed a distinctive conceptual practice in which objects, images, texts, and spaces form interconnected visual narratives. Drawing on literature, collecting, and the language of museums and display, her multimedia installations invite viewers to discover unexpected relationships between objects and the meanings generated by their juxtaposition.
Bloom will participate in OFFSCREEN at the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, Paris (20 – 25 October 2026). She has had institutional solo exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Serpentine Gallery, London; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; The Jewish Museum, New York; ZKM, Karlsruhe; and Kunsthal Aarhus, among others. She has also participated in a wide range of group shows, including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Kunsthalle Wien; and Deichtorhallen, Hamburg.
Among her numerous honors and appointments are a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Getty Research Institute Visiting Scholar appointment, and the Venice Biennale Duemila Prize for Best Young Artist.
Bloom’s work is held in major international collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Dutch National Collection, The Hague; International Center of Photography, New York; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Helsinki Museum of Modern Art; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Art Institute of Chicago; The New School, New York; ARTER, Istanbul; MAK Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna; and Miami Art Museum.
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Works
Barbara Bloom
It rained for four years, eleven months, and two days. (Marquez), 2015Hand tufted woollen carpet with carved braille text274 x 183 cm
108 x 72 inchesEdition 2/3B-BBLOOM-16-0008Translation of Braille text: It rained for four years, eleven months, and two days. There were periods of drizzle ... but the people soon grew accustomed to interpret the pauses...Translation of Braille text:
It rained for four years, eleven months, and two days. There were periods of drizzle ... but the people soon grew accustomed to interpret the pauses as a sign of redoubled rain. The sky crumbled into a set of destructive storms and out of the north came hurricanes that scattered roofs about and knocked down walls and uprooted every last plant of the banana groves.
(Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred years of Solitude, 1967)
Llovió durante cuatro años, once meses y dos días. Hubo períodos de llovizna… pero la gente pronto se acostumbró a interpretar las pausas como un signo de lluvia redoblada. El cielo se derrumbó en una serie de tormentas destructivas y del norte vinieron huracanes que esparcieron los tejados, derribaron paredes y arrancaron hasta la última planta de los platanales.
(Gabriel García Márquez, Cien Años de Soledad, 1967)
Es regnete vier Jahre, elf Monate und zwei Tage. Es gab Zeiten des Nieselregens [...] doch bald gewöhnte man sich daran,
die Regenpausen als Zeichen einer Verschlechterung anzusehen. Aus dem Himmel stürzten sintflutartige Regengüsse,
und der Norden schickte etliche Orkane, die Dächer abdeckten, Wände eindrückten und die letzten Stauden der Pflanzungen mitsamt den Wurzeln ausrissen.
(Gabriel García Márquez, Hundert Jahre Einsamkeit, 1967)NewsExhibitionsExternal ExhibitionsPressPublicationsRequest more information


