Note: the following is part of Glasstire’s series of short videos, Five-Minute Tours, for which commercial galleries, museums, nonprofits and artist-run spaces across the state of Texas send us video walk-throughs of their current exhibitions. Let’s get your show in front of an audience.
See other Five-Minute Tours here.
Joe Baraban: Window Dressings at Nicole Longnecker Gallery, Houston. Dates: June 3 – September 30, 2023.
A statement by the artist, via the gallery:
“I started my series of windows two years ago, quite by accident. I was driving to Nashville from Houston because my all-natural Bloody Mary mix was included in the gift basket that was to be given to the presenters and award winners at the 2008 Country Music Awards. I had decided to drive to Nashville to take some extra time photographing the countryside.
On the return, I drove through a small town in Mississippi looking for any interesting subject matter. As I was leaving town, I noticed an old, deserted building that had an interesting front door. Halfway through my setup, I became bored with the light since the door was in shadow and walked around the side where I saw several old and interesting windows that were in bright sunlight.
Father time, aided by the elements, had transformed the windows and the brick wall around them into a cacophony of colors, shapes, and textures. The contrast, from the bright sunny day, had rendered the various hues to a point of being surreal and exaggerated.
As is usually the case when I’m taking photographs, I am always searching for a unique angle or height when I’m out shooting. But not this time as there was something that was telling me not to distort the architectural integrity of these amazing windows.
I settled on a particular window, and even though it had weathered poorly through the years, there was something almost mystical about it, and I knew I was onto something. Something that would wind up consuming the better part of the next ten years.
Now as I travel the state of Texas, ‘window shopping’ as I call it, I always try to imagine what the windows I photograph could tell me if they could speak. I photograph the windows as they exist today and use virtually no help from Photoshop. The majority of structures have long since been abandoned, and I can only wonder who the last person was to look out a particular window, and what they might have seen and thought before they left for good.
Several pieces from this series are now included in the permanent photography collection of The Museum of Fine Art in Houston, Texas.”
