Studio Construct 51

2008 - Photography (Photography)

Barbara Kasten

year born: 1936
gender: female
nationality: American
home town: Chicago, Illinois

Barbara Kasten’s Studio Construct 51 depicts an abstract still life: a greyscale photograph of clear translucent panes assembled into geometric forms, the hard lines of their edges converging and bisecting at various points. Light streams from unseen sources and projects rectangular shadows against an adjacent wall. Three-dimensional shapes become suddenly flat as the objects in Kasten’s still life are juxtaposed alongside their ghostly traces. Kasten’s assemblages could be seen as sculptural plays on geometric abstraction, but her sets are deliberately temporary and staged only to be photographed and subsequently dismantled. In shifting focus from the object-as-subject to the document, Studio Construct 51 privileges ephemerality over permanence and suggests that all physical forms are transient and ultimately only recognizable by the artifacts that they leave behind.


Barbara Kasten creates constructions for the camera by building temporary sets out of unidentified materials that she photographs and immediately disassembles. Producing continuously since the 1960s, Kasten’s work is often identified with the California Light and Space Movement, and her photographs deliberately play on perceptual phenomena of light and shadow. Kasten is a self-taught photographer and distances herself from the profession. Regardless, her work continues to influence younger generations of photographers who are inspired by her innovative and experimental compositions.


Colors:



Related works of genres: » california college of the arts alumni  
» see more

Open Casket IX
© » KADIST

Indira Allegra

2018

Open Casket IX is an installation by Indira Allegra that combines traditional materials of memorial—tombstones, mausoleums, and caskets—with contemporary expressions of grief...

Captain X
© » KADIST

Luke Butler

2008

In Captain X , Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, played by William Shatner, is limply draped over a large boulder in what looks like a hostile alien environment...

Hydroforce
© » KADIST

Liz Cohen

2011

From among a cloud of fake smoke we see a heavily pregnant Cohen wearing a bikini and golden stilettos with lace-up straps wrapped around her legs, grasping onto the frame of a modified car as its loud hydraulic system clumsily moves it up and down...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Toyin Ojih Odutola

2015

As she traces the same shape again and again, Ojih Odutola’s lines become darker and deeper, sometimes pushed to the point where their blackness becomes luminous...

Related works featuring themes of: » Angular, » Architecture in Art, » Assemblage, » Color Photography, » American  
» see more

Flower Tree
© » KADIST

Choi Jeong-Hwa

2008

The application of bright colors and kitsch materials in Flower Tree manifests a playful comment on the influence of popular culture and urban lifestyle...

Untitled (Four-legged figure with three arms)
© » KADIST

Clare Rojas

2006

Rojas’s two pieces in the Kadist Collection— Untitled (four-legged…) and Untitled (Bird’s Eyes) —are representative of her pictorial style which uses bold colorful blocks of paint and female and animal characters...

EASTER MORNING
© » KADIST

Bruce Conner

2008

Unlike many of his earlier films which often present poignant critiques of mass media and its deleterious effects on American culture, EASTER MORNING , Conner’s final video work before his death in 2008, constitutes a far more meditative filmic essay in which a limited amount of images turn into compelling, almost hypnotic visual experience...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Flower Tree
© » KADIST

Choi Jeong-Hwa

2008

The application of bright colors and kitsch materials in Flower Tree manifests a playful comment on the influence of popular culture and urban lifestyle...

The Possibility of the Half
© » KADIST

Minouk Lim

2012

The Possibility of the Half by Minouk Lim is a two-channel video projection that begins with a mirror image of a weeping woman kneeling on the ground...

Safely Maneuvering Across Lin He Road
© » KADIST

Lin Yilin

1995

For his action, Safely Maneuvering across Lin He Road , Lin built a brick wall on one side of a busy main street in the city of Guangzhou...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Météo des forêts
© » SLASH PARIS

Météo des forêts — La MABA — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Météo des forêts — La MABA — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Météo des forêts Exhibition Film, installation, mixed media Upcoming Julien Prévieux et Virginie Yassef, L’Arbre, 2009 — Image : Élie Godard Film Super 8 transféré sur DVD — 7 min 18 — Ed 4 + 2 Courtesy des artistes Météo des forêts In about 1 month: January 18 → April 7, 2024 La MABA présente, du 18 janvier au 7 avril 2024, Météo des forêts : une exposition collective réunissant des travaux d’artistes de diverses générations travaillant différents médiums (dessin, photographie, vidéo, sculpture, installation…)...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Nick Mauss

2015

As in other Mauss’ works that often look unfinished, the drawings in Untitled seem ever at the phase of the sketch, his segments as if they may uproot and reorient themselves at any moment...

Frederick Eberstadt, Photographer of Socialites and Artists, Dies at 97
© » NYTIMES LENS

Frederick Eberstadt, Photographer of Socialites and Artists, Dies at 97 - The New York Times Obituaries | Frederick Eberstadt, Photographer of Socialites and Artists, Dies at 97 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/obituaries/frederick-eberstadt-dead.html Share full article Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Frederick Eberstadt, a fashion and society photographer whose varied work encompassed the parlors of Park Avenue as well as the gritty performance spaces of downtown Manhattan during New York’s avant-garde era of the 1960s, died on July 29 at his apartment in Manhattan...

White Series
© » KADIST

Ha Tae-Bum

2010

Ha Tae-Bum’s “White” series, started in 2008, begins with photographic images from the mainstream media depicting sites of conflict or crisis...

Related artist(s) to: Barbara Kasten » Annette Kelm, » Ballroom Marfa, » Charlotte Cotton, » Chris Wiley, » Erin Shirreff, » Fairfax Dorn, » Liz Larner, » Lucas Blalock, » Rachel Khedoori, » Simon Starling  
» see more

Nachbau
© » KADIST

Simon Starling

2007

Invited in 2007 to the Museum Folkwang in Essen (Germany), Simon Starling questioned its history: known for its collections and particularly for its early engagement in favor of modern art (including the acquisition and exhibition of works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse), then destroyed during the Second World War, the museum was pillaged for its masterpieces of ‘degenerate art’ by the nazis...

Percent for Art
© » KADIST

Annette Kelm

2013

Percent for Art is seemingly concerned with “art enrichment” by state or city arts agencies role in it, managing the artist rosters, maintaining public art collections, commissioning artworks, selecting installation sites, among other things for aesthetic and cultural enhancement in both public and private real estate developments...

three, three, three
© » KADIST

Lucas Blalock

2013

Blalock resists the immediacy that we have come to expect from photography—that each photograph should communicate its message without delay...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

A Biennale in Bologna Considers the Role of Games in Art
© » APERTURE

Can photography be a form of play? The recent Foto/Industria Biennale shows how improvisation and mugging for the camera are as old as the medium....

Serengeti Green
© » KADIST

Phillip Maisel

2015

While his works can function as abstract, they are very much rooted in physicality and the possibilities that are inherent in the materials themselves...

Typical Weapons
© » KADIST

Alejandro Marré

2007

Typical Weapons is a series of sculptural interventions where Alejandro Marre transforms traditional Guatemalan craft objects usually sold as souvenirs into weapons...

Rehearsal
© » KADIST

Aziz Hazara

2020

Youthfulness and gestures of play are central to Aziz Hazara’s practice...