In Players, Tina Barney expands her subject matter to include fashion, performers, and actors, as well as her own circle of friends. Emboldened by the cacophony when photographing on stage, Barney has embraced a more casual aesthetic that is visually exhilarating. Editor and designer Chip Kidd has translated this excitement to the pages of this new book. And Michael Stipe has contributed his poetic vertigo. In her two previous books, Barney chose to look at families in America and their milieu and then carried on this examination of families in Europe. Now she combines commercial assignments dating back as far as 1988, with editorial, fashion, and portraiture. Selections from her personal work complete the mix. The result is refreshing, revealing and curious. Barney has always been fascinated by the circumstances in which her subjects operate. Whether performing publicly or privately, they are all "players". Tina Barney was born in 1945 in New York. Since 1975, she has been producing large-scale photographs of family and friends. Her meticulous tableaux chronicle the complexity of interpersonal relationships.
These lush colour prints have been exhibited and collected by major institutions around the world. Barney was the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. Her monographs include The Europeans, published by Steidl in 2005. She lives in New York and Rhode Island.

Text by: Michael Stipe