Barry Barker is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Contemporary Art Curator and Gallerist. Barker is currently head of the Centre for Contemporary Visual Arts at the University of Brighton

University of Brighton

The University of Brighton is an English university of the United Kingdom, with a community of over 23,000 students and 2,600 staff based on campuses in Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. It has one of the best teaching quality ratings in the UK and a strong research record, factors which...

. Previously, he worked with Nigel Greenwood

Nigel Greenwood (art dealer)

Nigel Palin Greenwood was an erudite and independent-minded art dealer.-Early career:Nigel Greenwood was educated at Christ Church, Oxford and at the Courtauld Institute . He started his career in the art world at the Axiom Gallery in London...

 and was exhibitions officer at the Institute of Contemporary Arts

Institute of Contemporary Arts

The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...

 London and the John Hansard Gallery

John hansard gallery

The John Hansard Gallery, based at the University of Southampton’s Highfield campus, is one of Britain’s leading public galleries of contemporary visual art. Proud of its academic situation, the Gallery plays a key role in the cultural life of the campus and the city, drawing a wide local, national...

 before becoming Director of the Arnolfini

Arnolfini

The Arnolfini is an arts centre and gallery in Bristol, England. It has a programme of contemporary art exhibitions, live art, music and dance events, poetry and book readings, talks, lectures and cinema. There is also a specialist art bookshop and a café bar. Educational activities are undertaken...

 in Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

 1986-1991 overseeing a refurbishment of the gallery. Following this, Barker was briefly with the South Bank Centre

South Bank Centre

Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, UK, on the South Bank of the River Thames between County Hall and Waterloo Bridge. It comprises three main buildings , and is Europe’s largest centre for the arts. It attracts more than three million visitors annually...

 before becoming a Director of the Lisson Gallery

Lisson Gallery

The Lisson Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Bell Street, Lisson Grove, London, founded by Nicholas Logsdail in 1967. The gallery represents such artists as Ai Weiwei, John Latham, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Jonathan Monk, Julian Opie, Richard Wentworth and Turner Prize winners Anish Kapoor...

. Barker's main areas of interest have been conceptual art

Conceptual art

Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...

 and minimal

Minimal

Minimal can mean:* In mathematics, see Minimal element.* In music, see Minimalist music.* In electronic music, see Minimal techno.* In art see Minimalism.* In computing, see Computing minimalism.* Names:...

 and he had an influential role in many artists' careers of the last thirty years, especially Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor CBE RA is a British sculptor of Indian birth. Born in Mumbai , Kapoor has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s when he moved to study art, first at the Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design.He represented Britain in the XLIV Venice...

. In 1986, he was co-curator of "Falls the Shadow" with Jon Thompson

Jon Thompson

Jon Thompson is an artist, curator and academic known for his involvement in the development of the YBA artist generation.As the Head of Goldsmiths Department of Art in the 1980s, Thompson opened up specialisms and allowed students to move freely between the different modes of practice, such as...

 at the Hayward Gallery

Hayward Gallery

The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre, part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings and also the Royal National Theatre and British Film Institute...

.

Recent Publications

• 'La costrucció de la vida de…/ The Making of the Life of...' in El que vols que digui…Jo ja sóc mort/ What you want me to say… I'm already dead/ Lo que quieres que diga…Yoya estoy muerto. Edited by V.I. Brichs. Publisher: Fundacio Joan Miro 2006, ISBN 84-934730-1-4.
• '[re]imaging the world, the work of Jane and Louise Wilson' in Jane and Louise Wilson. Editors: F. J. Panera. Publisher: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2003. ISBN 84-7800-705-9.

Major exhibitions curated

• 'Our Magic Hour (Ugo Rondinone)'. Photographic exhibition University of Brighton Gallery, 7 October – 2 November 2002.
• David Austen film Crackers, the central feature of the David Austen exhibition at the Milton Keynes Gallery, 10 February – 23 March 2007.

External links

• bio at University of Brighton