Ricardo Barros is a photographer, writer, curator, and filmmaker. His works are in the permanent collections of eleven museums, including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the Museum of Art of São Paulo.

In 2004 Barros published  Facing Sculpture:  A Portfolio of Portraits, Sculpture and Related Ideas, a book of portraiture that also addresses contemporary sculpture.  Magdalena Abakanowicz, one of the sculptors portrayed, wrote: “What a superb, unusual book! What a significant work of art … Thank you for this work beyond categories.” Barry Schwabsky wrote in the New York Times: “Each of these portraits has clearly been thought through differently — composed differently, lighted differently — reflecting the collaborative nature of his work with the sculptors Mr. Barros has chosen to portray … He seems to know that a certain degree of critical tension will give liveliness and complexity to his images, but he lets the tension remain a nuance.” Read full New York Times exhibition review here.

The 2012-2018 project, Riverside Silos, focuses on an industrial landscape. Referring to a set of enormous storage silos he photographed, Barros writes: “… the sheer geometry of these forms begs for a study of light, shadow and space.”

The 2013-2020 Figuring Space portfolio consists of photographs, an essay, and a companion video.  Using the figure, Barros explores space as a metaphor: “Until we encounter a boundary, space is completely invisible to us. We perceive space only when it ends,” he writes. Doug Wallack wrote about this project: “The images play with the tension between abstraction and context that space embodies — that tug between a sort of ideal Platonic form of space and space as we, embodied, experience it.” Read full review here.

Barros is currently working with 360-degree panoramas, exploring the idea that space can be folded and time reshaped to tell stories with a nonlinear narrative.

Ricardo Barros was awarded a Fellowship in Photography by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts in 1984 and 2021.

Museums

Barros’ work is in the permanent collection of eleven museums, including:

• Smithsonian Museum of American Art
• Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), Brazil
• Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS), Brazil
• Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Fogg Art Museum
• DeCordova Museum

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2022 Princeton University
2017 CameraWork Gallery, Scranton, PA
2017 Taft Communications, Lawrenceville, NJ
2013 Gallery 219, Trenton, NJ
2008 Kean University, NJ
2007 The DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
2005 National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, PA
2005 Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT
2005 Johnson & Johnson Corporate Headquarters, New Brunswick, NJ.
2004 Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
2004 The Ellarslie Museum, Trenton, NJ
2004 Marsha Child Contemporary Gallery, Princeton, NJ
2000 Keyes Gallery, Springfield, MO
1998 Grounds For Sculpture Museum, Hamilton, NJ
1990 Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS) Brazil
1984 Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), Brazil

Curator

“Stone Sculpture in New Jersey,” works by Ayami Aoyama, Harry Gordon,William Happel, Constantine Cotty Nazarie, and Christoper Spath at Kean University

“New Jersey Arts Annual,” with Margaret O’Reilly, at New Jersey State Museum

“Extraordinary Mash-Ups,” photographs by Ilya Genin, at Arts Council of Princeton

“Perseus Slays Medusa: Greek Myth Retold,” photographs by Barbara Warren, at Arts Council of Princeton