About the Book
Phantom Power is a book about the intangible. Barbara Diener is fascinated by unexplained phenomena and, in this book, she has used a variety of methods to capture images that convey the ineffable qualities of human existence. Barbara Diener is an award winning lens based artist currently the Collection Manager in the Department of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago.Allison Grant is a writer, curator, artist, and Assistant Professor in the Art and Art History Department at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.Gregory Harris is the Assistant Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
About the Author :
Born in 1982 in Germany Barbara Diener received her Bachelor of Fine Art in photography from the California College of the Arts and Masters in Fine Art in Photography from Columbia College Chicago.
Her work has been exhibited at Alibi Fine Art, Chicago, IL, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, Hyde Park Art Center, Hyde Park, IL, David Weinberg Gallery, Chicago, IL, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM, Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA, Invisible Dog Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Lilllstreet Art Center, Chicago, IL, Riverside Art Center, Chicago, IL. Pingyao Photo Festival, China, The Arcade, Chicago, IL, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA, Darkroom Gallery, Essex Junction, VT and Project Basho, Philadelphia, PA among others. Diener’s photographs are part of several private and institutional collections including the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Photography.
In 2013 Diener was selected to participate in two highly ambitious and competitive artist residency programs, the Fields Project in Oregon, IL and ACRE in Steuben, WI and she is currently participating in the residency program HATCH Projects 2015-2016 through the Chicago Artist Coaltition.
Diener is a winner of Flash Forward 2013, the recipient of a Follett Fellowship at Columbia College Chicago and was awarded the Albert P. Weisman Award in 2012 and 2013. In addition Diener received an Individual Artist Grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Events in 2015. She is the Collection Manager in the Department of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago and teaches Photography at Oakton Community College. Allison Grant is a curator, writer, and artist living in Homewood, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Since 2008, she has served as Assistant Curator of Education and Exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Grant holds an MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago and a BFA in Media Studies from the Columbus College of Art and Design. She teaches in the Photography and Art & Design departments at Columbia College Chicago. Gregory Harris is the Assistant Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. He earned a BFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago, and an MA in art history from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Review :
“...a poem, a diary exploring grief and belief and the unknown. The images are sometimes mysterious, sometimes frightening, sometimes whimsical, but there is always a feeling that the images contain more.”,
- Photographer's Forum, Winter 2018
“Diener explores and interprets the possibilities through her photography using various techniques such as suggestive aberrations and double exposures which draw on an expansive history of photographers who have experimented with the medium’s unique relationship with the concept of truth.”,
- The Visualist, May 24, 2018
Also featured by:
Humble Arts Foundation
Artdaily
aPhotoEditor
