As an Austrian American I grew up between two countries, religions and cultures. Duality forms the basis for my practice as a visual artist. He/she, black/white, gay/straight, yin/yang, positive/negative, analog/digital, visible/invisible: I am interested in the formal use of the binary as a tool to mask and reveal notions of how we occupy, perceive and interpret our world.
I have long conversed with the concept of using positive and negative space to experience a photographic image in an unfamiliar way. My work challenges the way we see, causing us to find abstract shapes or forms in the space between. I use the pixel in photography and the medium of painting to discuss the relationship between the two disciplines: an attempt at deconstructing abstraction in an art historical context and painterly manner via the camera lens.
My formal process of obstruction reveals political discussions of the traces left behind from climate change, emotional reactions of what we hide/show of ourselves to others and to ourselves and psychological layers of distance in how we inhabit our environment. Over the past decade I have embedded into my practice my personal fascination and fear of the digital Internet age of online cameras and exchanges of images with the use of found surveillance webcams and public domain satellite pictures. I create images that are largely white or black, creating a conversation with the “white” and “black” painting of Minimalism. I use painted gold leaf on a NASA satellite image captured and manipulated by scientists to study the effects climate change has had on the water volume of rivers because visually it relates to a Gustav Klimt or Egon Schiele painting; thus a tool for using beauty to comment on the terrifying environmental crises of today.
CONTACT
CV
Born 1980 Washington, D.C.
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Salzburg, Austria
Education
2006 Yale University, New Haven, CT
Master of Fine Arts, Photography
2002 Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, R.I.
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Photography
1999 Speos Photographic Institute, Paris, France
Solo Exhibitions
2023 Upcoming, High Noon, New York, NY
2018 Standing in the Eye, High Noon, New York, NY
2014 As the Crow Flies, Galerie D’A), , Switzerland
2013 Opéra, Opéra de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
2011 Fade to White, University of the Arts Museum, Rosenwald Wolf Gallery,
Philadelphia, PA
Grande Avenues, American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, Washington, D.C.
2010 Upstream, Video Tank, Zürich, Switzerland
Under Construction “Conversation With Architecture”, collaboration with architect
Philippe Meyer of Meyer Architecte, Vesenaz, Switzerland
Helvetica, Galerie D’(A), Lausanne, Switzerland
2009 Marisa Baumgartner, L MD Galerie, Paris, France
2006 Marisa Baumgartner, Domo Gallery, Summit, N.J
New Work, Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton, New York, NY
2004 Organized Chaos, Gallery 10G, New York, NY
2002 Photographs Construct, Red Eye Gallery, Providence, R.I.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021 Artifacts, Casa Hoffmann, Bogota, Columbia
2019 Welcome, Liz Lidgett Gallery, Des Moines, IA
2017 The Painted Desert, High Noon, New York, NY
2013 Summer Show, Galerie D’A), Lausanne, Switzerland
2012 Surface Tension, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock, NY
2011 Silent Significance, L MD Galerie, Paris, France
MOVE!, L MD Galerie, Paris, France
2010 Transformative Travel Experience, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI and
Speos Photographic Institute, Paris, France
2009 New York Group Show, L MD Galerie, Paris, France
2008 239 years (divided by 9 artists), Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
2007 White Club Space #2, Space Odyssee, Salzburg, Austria
Marisa Baumgartner and Amy Park, Thacher, Proffitt and Wood, New York, NY
Group Show, Baumgartner Gallery, New York, NY
2006 Yale MFA Photography 2006, Baumgartner Gallery, New York, NY
MFA Photography Thesis Show, Yale School of Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Joint Venture: Selections from the Ramer Collection and Selected Photographs,
curated by Matthias Geiger and Renny Pritikin, joint exhibition between
the Pence Gallery and the Richard L. Nelson Galleryat UC Davis, Davis, CA
2005 MFA 2nd Year Group Show, Yale School of Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
2004 MFA 1st Year Group Show, Yale School of Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
New Voices, New Visions...W Hotels Goes Gallery, benefit traveling show
and auction, W Hotels, San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, New York, NY
Unframed First Look, curated by Cindy Sherman, Jack Pierson & Adam
Fuss, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, NY
2002 New Works, Woods Gerry Gallery, Providence, R.I.
2000 Celebration of a Decade, Red Eye Gallery, Providence, R.I.
(curated by Anna Strickland)
1999 Photography Biennial, Woods Gerry Gallery, Providence, R.I.
1998 Scholastic Awards Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
AWARDS AND PUBLICATIONS
2018 Standing in the Eye, exhibition catalogue
2012 Note Buena Loft residency, Cadaqués, Spain
Commission, The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
2011 Arrêt Sur Image(s), Marisa Baumgartner, by Philippe Meyer, article, Fall 2011, FACES
“Grande Avenues,” review, June/July 2011, Art in America
Reviewed: Marisa Baumgartner and Julie Linows at the American University Museum,
March 7, 2011, review, Washington City Paper
New York in Photographs, edited by Marla Hamburg Kennedy, published by Rizzoli, book
2010 Flash>, Marisa Baumgartner at Galerie D’(A), article, October 2011, Artline Magazine
Galerie D’(A), Helvetica, review, September 11, 2010, Guideloisirs
2006 “Taking Abstraction to Its Logical Extreme,” David Gross, review, July 13, 2006
The New York Sun
Yale School of Art MFA Photography, Book
Joint Venture, Selections from the Ramer Collection and Selected Photographs, catalogue