Dr. Roann Barris

Assoc. Prof. of Art History and Co-Director, Radford University Museum

Artemisia Gentileschi: Self-Portrait as La Pittura, c. 1638/9  Link to Art216: Survey II	film still from Dziga Vertov: The Man with a Camera, 1927 Art451/601-02: History of Photographic Media and Camera Arts	William W. Story: The Libyan Sibyl, 1861 Art448/601-01: American Art and Architecture

Constantin Alajalov, cover for "Modern Art at the SesquiCentennial" exhib. catalogue, 1920	Daniel Libeskind, Jewish Museum, Berlin (completed in 1998)

The top three images relate to some of the classes I teach; the bottom two relate to the topics of my research and writing. But all of them capture what I think of as the experience of art history--an invitation to look at the world with new eyes, to see the familiar as something unfamiliar, and a vision which stays with you, even when you're no longer in its presence. What's more, all of the images on this page have a story to tell -- although their particular stories are not always obvious at first sight. Most of all, the image from the "Man with a Camera" challenges the whole question of vision and truth when it comes to art, photography, and the stories we tell about the world we live in -- which is precisely why we should study these images.

A little about me:

• my c.v.
• 2008 summer research project: NEH institute on Russian and Soviet Visual Culture
• other work: Architectures of Memory and Counter-Memory: Berlin and Bucuresti
• new research in progress: The American response to the Russian avant-garde