Excerpt from Art in America article Architectural Light written by Barbara Kasten January 9, 2015 “For two years in the mid-1960s, when I was just out of college and ready to see the world, I lived and worked in various cities in Germany. It was my first time in Europe, and I was impressed by […]
An exert from Alex Klein’s interview from Hillman Photography Initiative – Carnegie Museum of Art “Curation can be a kind of storytelling—it is a chance to narrate or reframe an artist’s practice, but it is also a conversation. For the past two years I have been spending time with the artist Barbara Kasten as we […]
Aperture Magazine Issue 214 Spring 2014
A forward written by Barbara Kasten The seventh volume of C Photo, Photographicness, is an introduction to the photographic language of fourteen artists who are undergoing new explorations into the material qualities of the medium and the image‐making process. Each artist has developed a portfolio that reveals their work processes, emphasising the way in which they carry out their current investigations and specific projects. This publication is the result of the diversity of their approaches, which provide a constellation of ideas that are as thoughtful as they are materially inventive. Link to the website
In 2009 artist and writer Sarah Trigg embarked on an ambitious field expedition across the United States, interviewing more than 200 artists in their studios. She’sat down with everyone, from painters to performance artists, to investigate a wide range of artmaking practices. The result is Studio Life, a fascinating photographic and written account of 100 […]
London’s largest gathering of visual art and contemporary intellect has arrived (continue reading…)
Galerie Kadel Willborn, Düsseldorf ‘SCENES’ exhibition: May 24 – July 6, 2013. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Published June 6, 2013 In conversation: the photographer Barbara Kasten All That Postmodern Stuff Questions asked by Magdalena Kröner. The American photo-artist Barbara Kasten is currently experiencing a late but stellar career. A conversation on the chromaticity of black and […]
“Barbara Kasten Geometric Abstraction on Photography,” Vision Magazine China, Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
“Barbara Kasten,” Joseph Akel. Freize Magazine, Issue 154, April 2013, Reviews: Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, CA, pg 168s
Editorial in Beirut-based A Magazine’s August/September issue
In interview with Art In America’s Courtney Fiske
The New Yorker cited Constructs, Abrasions, Melons, Cucumbers at Bortolami Gallery in their July “Short List.”
Included in New City’s recent list of 50 artist’s artists in Chicago
ARTFORUM March 2012 Los Angeles: Barbara Kasten, Gallery Luisotti
From Huffington Post Arts: Haiku Reviews: From Vivaldi To Vivid Pop Art (PHOTOS) First posted: 01/06/2012 HuffPost Arts’ Haiku Reviews are biweekly features where we invite critics to review exhibitions and performances in short form. Some will be in the traditional Haiku form of 5x7x5 syllables, others might be a sonnet or even a string […]
Set Pieces October 24, 2011 By Anthony Pearson Barbara Kasten has been creating inventive and influential images for more than 40 years. Artist Anthony Pearson talked to her about theatricality, her approach to photography and what it means to ‘think like a painter’ Barbara Kasten’s artistic practice takes place in front of the camera as […]
Barbara Kasten Talks With Heidi Norton October 21, 2011 GUEST POST BY HEIDI NORTON As a photography student of the mid/late 90′s, Barbara Kasten was of great significance to me. I lost track of her during the first decade of the millennium, as the contemporaries of the Becher’s school (Gursky, Ruff, Struth) dominated the art market with their […]
Studio Construct 118, 2011 Eye Exam: Concrete Light Sep 27, 2011 By Regan Golden-McNerney Since the 1970s, Barbara Kasten has been developing a distinct approach to abstract photography. Inspired by the simple forms used by Bauhaus artists from the 1930s, Kasten begins her process by arranging basic shapes and colored backdrops atop glass and mirrors. […]
ARTFORUM 09.30.11 Author: Claudine Ise 09.09.11-10.15.11 Tony Wight Gallery Since the mid-1970s, Barbara Kasten has been making abstract pictures that reveal and exploit the medium’s underlying properties—in particular, photography’s dependence on light to record material phenomena and its tendency to flatten or otherwise distort the viewer’s perceptions of a given volume, spatial relationship, or object. […]
New Art GALLERY WEEKEND CHICAGO by Pedro Vélez The road to recovery starts with recognizing that you have a problem. The good news is that Chicago’s problem has finally been diagnosed. Local collectors are not powerful, sexy or charismatic enough to sustain or promote the city’s art scene. So instead of crying like little babies […]
Meeting at the intersection of blue and white September 21, 2011|By Lori Waxman, Special to the Tribune We tend to think of collaboration as something that happens intentionally. A certain number of people agree to work together, and jointly they produce a project. These people might be scientists, they might be educators, they might be […]
Construct X-B, an 8 x 10 polaroid, is featured in Assouline’s De Beers Jewelry book.
Barbara Kasten Galerie Kadel Willborn Barbara Kasten, Construct VII-A, 1981 Since the late 1970s, Barbara Kasten’s photographic works have toed a line between the abstract potential of the medium and its inescapable referentiality. Born in Chicago in 1936 and schooled in the historical formal vocabulary of Constructivism, Kasten creates spatial arrangements which oscillate between the […]
“From Polaroid to Impossible. Masterpieces of Instant Photography. The WestLicht Collection” features Construct PC III C, a 20 x 24 Polaroid. Edited by Achim Heine, Rebekka Reuter, Ulrike Willingmann, texts by Achim Heine, Barbara P. Hitchcock, Florian Kaps, graphic design by Heine/Lenz/Zizka German/English 2011. 192 pp., 230 color ills. 25.30 x 32.50 cm hardcover The […]
My work is mentioned in the March 2011 issue of ARTnews in Rebecca Robertson’s article “Building Pictures.” Studio Construct 69 (2008, pictured above) is featured on page 78. Read the article online and pick up a copy of the magazine at your local bookstore.
I am included in the publication L.A. Rising: SoCal Artists before 1980. “L.A. Rising: SoCal Artists Before 1980” is the first comprehensive pictorial showcase of the diverse universe of artists working in the Los Angeles area during the formative period of Los Angeles’ art history. Over 800 color and 100 black and white images of […]
“The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography” by Lyle Rexer, a book published by Aperture, is now available. One of my 20×24 Polaroid from 1981 is the frontispiece for the book and two Studio Constructs appear on pages 160-161.
“Starburst: Color Photography in America 1970-1980,” a full color catalogue published by by Hatje Cantz and distributed by DAP/Distributed Art Publishers and including texts by Kevin Moore, James Crump and Leo Rubinfien. The catalogue will be released in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition in Cincinnati and can be purchased ($70) at the Cincinnati […]
Barbara Kasten presents her work Studio Construct 17 as based on physical constructions that play with light and are created only for the purpose of being photographed. By this approach, the photograph itself becomes the object and is removed from being representative or documentary. Kasten expands that while subject matter is inherent to photography, her […]
This podcast features an audio recording of a conversation with photographer Barbara Kasten dated March 22, 1982. Listen to it here.