Since the 1970s, Barbara Kasten (born 1936) has developed her expansive photographic practice through the lens of sculpture, painting, theater, textile and installation. Well known within photographic and contemporary art discourse, the Chicago-based artist has recently begun to be reconsidered within the broader context of architectural theory. This survey contextualizes Kasten’s investigations into how moving images and light play within and through architectural forms.

Alongside full-color plates, the book features a long-form interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, whose 2019 Chicago Marathon stage was designed by Kasten, as well as a number of essays: artist Irena Haiduk discusses Kasten’s collaborations with corporations such as Polaroid; curator Humberto Moro explores the relationship between Kasten’s constructions and midcentury architects from Mexico and Brazil; curator Mimi Zeiger examines the Bauhaus movement from a feminist lens; and editor Cristello recalls historical moments that provide a “stage” through which to consider Kasten’s formulations of space as cinema.

Featured image is reproduced from 'Barbara Kasten: Architecture & Film (2015–2020).' Installation view: "Barbara Kasten, Scenarios," 2020. Photo: Carter Seddon

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

ArtnetTaylor Dafoe

These artworks—the old ones and the new—do not easily fit the prescribed, process-obsessed descriptions so often found in writings about Kasten. But they're certainly not anomalies either. That these non-photographic creations haven't been seen as much is, for Cristello, a question not of quality, but support.