22 May 2015 // Simcha van Helden //Rotterdam

//WEEKLY ART REPORT

Meet Barbara Kasten, From the late 1970’s on she creates works inspired on Bauhaus, Constructivism, the California Light and Space Movement, and Postmodern architecture and design. Her work sits at the crossing between photography, sculpture and installation. Kasten’s concern with the transaction between three-dimensional and two-dimensional forms, her interest in staging and the role of the prop, her cross-disciplinary process, and the way she has developed new approaches to abstraction and materiality are all intensely relevant to the present artistic moment. With her work she questions photography, its strengths and weaknesses. As she says herself:

‘The components are set up in positions that rely on gravity to hold them together. I find the place where they can lean on one another without falling, creating a sense of fragility and mystery as to how they exist. Once I’ve selected the materials that are set up in front of the camera, I begin a dance, exchanging points of view – from in front of and behind the camera. As I see the image on the ground glass, I step in the set to reposition the plates, adjust angles and redirect the light in a variety of ways that alter my recognition of the elements. Made to capture ‘real’ objects in perfectionist detail, I manipulate the default functions of my camera to rearrange reality. This private performance is my process. The temporary sculptures I make are not meant to exist without being recorded and, in reality, they do not exist outside of their recorded image. ‘