Barbara Kasten
Institute of Contemporary Art
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Barbara Kasten: Stages, 2015, installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), University of Pennsylvania. Photo by Constance Mensh. Courtesy of ICA.
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Barbara Kasten, Construct XV, 1982, polaroid, 8 x 10.
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Barbara Kasten: Stages, 2015, installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), University of Pennsylvania. Photo by Constance Mensh. Courtesy of the Institute of Contemporary Art.
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Documentation of Barbara Kasten working in her studio, New York, NY, 1983. Photo courtesy of the artist.
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Barbara Kasten, Construct 32, 1986, 40 x 30 inches, Cibachrome. Photo courtesy of the artist.
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Barbara Kasten, Axis, 2015, video projection, installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Photo by Constance Mensh. Courtesy of the Institute of Contemporary Art.
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Barbara Kasten: Stages, 2015, installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), University of Pennsylvania. Photo by Constance Mensh. Courtesy of ICA.
Barbara Kasten's photography—which draws inspiration from sculpture, theater, and architecture—has become an important precedent for a generation of younger artists. Despite this, her work remains largely unknown in the culture at large. The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) plans to change that by organizing the first major retrospective to situate four decades of Kasten's photography in relationship to other areas of artistic practice. Program Curator Alex Klein will conduct research first in Chicago, where she will interview the artist and view her extensive archives, and then in California, where she will speak to people affiliated with the Bauhaus and the California Light and Space movements—both influences on Kasten's work. Klein will share her ongoing research through ICA's newly revamped website, which will launch in the fall of 2013.