Artist Talk: Barbara Kasten

Aperture Foundation and the Photography Program at the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design are pleased to present a lecture with artist Barbara Kasten. Influenced by the Bauhaus and Constructivism, Kasten explores modes of reorganizing the visual environment. With geometric shapes, mirrors, glass, lighting gels, and a lighting crew recruited from the film industry, she creates abstract interpretations of interior spaces and architectural details. More recently, Kasten has transformed the human form in a series of hazy nudes.

Barbara Kasten (born in 1936 in Chicago) received her BFA from the University of Arizona and her MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts. Kasten is the recipient of many prestigious awards and her work has been widely exhibited in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Her photographs are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; International Center of Photography, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Lodz, Poland; and Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Kasten is a professor of photography at Columbia College Chicago.

Image: Barbara Kasten, Architectural Site 7, World Financial Center, N.Y., 1986