ARTFEED — Contemporary Art Intelligence

Rosa Barba's Changing Cinema: Projector Sculptures and Printed Cinema at Tate Modern

exhibition · 2026-04-22

Rosa Barba's exhibition at Tate Modern, on view through 8 January 2011, explores temporality and spatiality through film, projector sculptures, and publications. Her series Printed Cinema, published since 2004, adapts film stills and text into printed matter, offering a 'free screening' in book form. The show features 16mm projector sculptures that invert the relationship between subject and object, such as Stating the Real Sublime (2009), a suspended projector that projects only dust scratches. Barba's film The Long Road (2010) surveys a California desert racetrack from a plane, evoking Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Felt drape sculptures with cut-out text further blur narrative and materiality. The exhibition also includes an online version of Printed Cinema, updating Smithson's photo-essay tradition. Curator Ben Borthwick and writer Melissa Gronlund contributed an essay to Afterall.

Key facts

  • Rosa Barba's exhibition at Tate Modern runs through 8 January 2011.
  • Printed Cinema is a series of publications started in 2004.
  • Stating the Real Sublime (2009) is a suspended 16mm projector sculpture.
  • The Long Road (2010) is a film shot in 35mm from a plane over a California racetrack.
  • The film references Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970).
  • Barba's felt drape sculptures feature stencilled text and are illuminated by spotlights.
  • The online version of Printed Cinema updates Smithson's 1969 Artforum photo-essay.
  • The essay was written by Ben Borthwick and Melissa Gronlund.

Entities

Artists

  • Rosa Barba
  • Robert Smithson

Institutions

  • Tate Modern
  • Afterall

Locations

  • London
  • United Kingdom
  • California
  • United States
  • Great Salt Lake
  • Utah

Sources