Barbara Kasten: Figure/Chair, 1972-73

Barbara Kasten lives and works in Chicago. Kasten’s practice centers an exploration of perception and materiality. Her photographic output has been essential to the last decade of multi-disciplinary work in sculpture, video, installation, and public art. These works continue to examine an object’s presence within both illusionistic and real space. Forms—designated by shadow, color, and the space between objects—oscillate between representation and abstraction. Her work has been exhibited across the United States and Europe. Most recently, Kasten was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany, which traveled to Sammlung Goetz. Her work is featured in the collections of the MoMA, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Tate Modern, and many others.

Art historian Martha Schwendener, PhD, is an art critic for the New York Times and a visiting professor at New York University. Her criticism and essays have been published in Artforum, Afterimage, Bookforum, October, Art in America, The New Yorker, the Village Voice, the Brooklyn Rail, Art Papers, New Art Examiner, Paper Monument, and other publications. She is working on a manuscript that examines Vilém Flusser’s philosophy in relation to art.