Barbara Astman

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

artist who specializes in a hybrid of photography and new media, often using her own body as object and subject, merging art and technology.

Early life

Astman was born in

Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...

, New York, the second of three children of Bertha (née Meisel, a homemaker) and George Astman (an auto mechanic and salesman.) She received her associate degree at the

Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private research university in the town of Henrietta in the Rochester, New York, metropolitan area. The university offers undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional ...

's School for American Craftsmen. In 1970, she moved to

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Canada to study at the

Ontario College of Art Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within d ...

(now OCAD University,) and graduated with an associate degree (A.O.C.A.).

Artistic career

Astman's practice is partly composed of public art installations in Canada and abroad, including an installation at the Calgary

Winter Olympics The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...

in 1987. Recently, she completed a project for the new Canadian Embassy in Berlin,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

consisting of a

frit A frit is a ceramic composition that has been fused, quenched, and granulated. Frits form an important part of the batches used in compounding enamels and ceramic glazes; the purpose of this pre-fusion is to render any soluble and/or toxic compo ...

ted glass tower wall. She joined the faculty of OCAD in 1975 and is a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

in the Faculty of Art.

Early career

In the 1970s, she began exploring

Polaroid Polaroid may refer to: * Polaroid Corporation, an American company known for its instant film and cameras * Polaroid camera, a brand of instant camera formerly produced by Polaroid Corporation * Polaroid film, instant film, and photographs * Polar ...

technology and

Xerography Xerography is a dry photocopying technique. Originally called electrophotography, it was renamed xerography—from the roots el, ξηρός, label=none ''xeros'', meaning "dry" and -γραφία ''-graphia'', meaning "writing"—to emphasize ...

as a vehicle for art making. She moved to Toronto in 1970 to attend

OCAD Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within do ...

. Wanting to explore the city she found inspiration in Kensington Market, Spadina Avenue and Queen Street West. Her first successful solo show was held in 1973, at Toronto's Baldwin Street Gallery of Photography. Two years later, the Still Photography Division of the

National Film Board The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary fi ...

of Canada now called the

Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography The Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP) (french: Le Musée canadien de la photographie contemporaine (MCPC)) was a gallery of Canadian contemporary art and documentary photography. Founded in 1985 and affiliated to the National Gall ...

, Ottawa hosted her first museum show. Astman began the ''Colour Xerox Artist's Program'' at Visual Arts Ontario in 1977. She sat on the board of directors at the Art Gallery at Harbourfront (now called

The Power Plant The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery is a Canadian non-collecting public contemporary art gallery located at the heart of Toronto, Ontario at the Harbourfront Centre. It is a registered Canadian charitable organization supported by its membe ...

) from 1983 to 1985. Since then, other board positions have included: the City of Toronto, Public Art Commission; the Curatorial Team for the International WaterWorks Exhibition in 1988. Her initial commercial venture was the creation of the album cover for the first '' Loverboy'' record for

CBS Records CBS Records may refer to: * CBS Records or CBS/Sony, former name of Sony Music, a global record company * CBS Records International, label for Columbia Records recordings released outside North America from 1962 to 1990 * CBS Records (2006), founde ...

Mid career

Liz Wylie curated Astman's mid-career retrospective, ''Barbara Astman: Person/Persona A 20 Year Survey Exhibition'' in 1995. It opened at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and then toured three other Canadian museums. The

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Bev ...

reopened in 2008, after a year's redevelopment by architect Frank Gehry. Astman and AGO Assistant Curator

Georgiana Uhlyarik Georgiana Uhlyarik-Nicolae, also known as Georgiana Uhlyarik (born 1972) is a Romanian-born Canadian art curator, art historian, and teacher. She is currently the Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). She ...

were chosen to co-curate an exhibit focusing on

Joyce Weiland Joyce Wieland (June 30, 1930 – June 27, 1998) was a Canadian experimental filmmaker and mixed media artist. Wieland found success as a painter when she began her career in Toronto in the 1950s. In 1962, Wieland moved to New York City and e ...

and early feminist practice. Barbara Astman has been heavily inspired by stores, even creating her own as an art work: ''Dancing with Che: Enter Through the Gift Shop'' (2011–13). Che Guevara's face appears on mugs, plates, and other novelty goods, though none are for sale. She also works with fabrics and in 2013 Astman worked with designer Jeremy Liang to create a line of limited edition silk scarves based on her ''Newspaper Series'' (2006-2008) for Jonathan and Olivia fashion boutique in Toronto. Her artist's archives are held in the E.P. Taylor Research Library & Archives, Art Gallery of Ontario.

Awards

In 2000 she was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy.

Public collections

Astman's work is held in the following permanent collections, among others: *

Agnes Etherington Art Centre The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is located in Kingston, Ontario, in the heart of the historic campus of Queen's University. Situated on traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory, the gallery has received a number of awards for its exhib ...

, Queen's University, Kingston, ON * Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, ON *

, Toronto, ON *

Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

, Paris * Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, British Columbia * The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON *

George Eastman Museum The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

, Rochester, New York * McIntosh Gallery, University of Western Ontario, London, ON * Museum of Fine Arts, Houston *

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the ...

, Ottawa *The

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

Art Museum *

Oklahoma City Museum of Art Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New M ...

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, London *

Winnipeg Art Gallery The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...

, Winnipeg, MB

Critical reception

''The Clementine Suite'' :"...a celebration of the human spirit." ''Dancing With Che'' :"...echoes across more than a century of technological innovation and evolution of the medium". :"Audacious, humorous, improbable." ''Wonderland'' :"Intimate, personal, and quietly enthralling."Whyte, Murray, ''Toronto Star'', ''Wonderland'' Nov. 16, 2009. http://thestar.blogs.com/untitled/2009/11/barbara-astmans-wonderland-at-jane-corkin.html .

References

External links

CCCA Artist Database

Finding aid to Barbara Astman archives at Art Gallery of Ontario
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Astman, Barbara 1950 births Artists from Rochester, New York Canadian mixed media artists Artists from Toronto Canadian contemporary artists Canadian multimedia artists Canadian photographers Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Living people OCAD University alumni 20th-century Canadian women artists 20th-century Canadian artists