Barbara Kasten: Stages at the Institute of Contemporary Art

Kasten was educated in sculpture and fiber art and has worked in many disciplines and media over more than 40 years. Her career is surveyed in Barbara Kasten: Stages at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) through August 16. The title alludes both to Kasten’s evolution as an artist and her process, which begins with painstaking set creation, whether for photograph, architectural interpretation, live performance, or installation.

Even when photographing an existing subject, such as a Greek burial figurine or a Frank Gehry building, Kasten doesn’t produce easily identifiable images. She wants viewers to connect, but not in a reflexive way, simply because they recognize what they see. “I’m not so interested in photography that looks like a painting as I am in photography that has a structure to it, that has a more interesting idea as motivation for making it — not just to make it look like an extraction of real life or nature. I like it to have its own life,” she said in an interview the book of her work, The Edge of Vision (www.aperture.org).

Inexplicable images

Though nonrepresentational, Kasten’s work is evocative. Intellectually, I can’t explain what I saw, but I can tell you how it made me feel. Some photographs create a sense of isolation, of being alone in an unrecognizable universe, while others provide a sense of orderly calm, as though everything is in perfect alignment. Some radiate so much energy that I retreated, while others drew me in. With angled and confused perspectives, it isn’t always clear which way is up in Kasten’s work, producing an off-balance, even dizzy, sensation.

In the Photogenic Paintings (1974-1977), Kasten laid fiberglass molds on chemically treated sheets, producing cyanotypes — blueprints — of rich and assorted textures. The examples at the ICA vary in appearance, resembling shimmering thermal images, gathered folds of watered silk, or sand dunes carved into soft ridges, overlaid with a fine screen. That’s what I saw: Your results may vary.

The Construct works (1979-1986) are photographs for which Kasten arranged cones, spheres, mirrors, panels, backdrops, scrims, and gels in settings as big as a walk-in closet. In these life-size tableaus, she bends perspective and toys with gravity. Early Constructs are vividly colorful. Triptych III (1983) is a garish presentation of red and purple shapes against black, while Construct XXVII (1984), a cool composition of lilac, seafoam, and glass block, looks like it was lifted from the set of Miami Vice.

Bringing the constructs to life

Though most recognized for photography, Kasten has worked across genres, and the ICA presents several examples. Organized by ICA Curator Alex Klein, the exhibit includes a video of a 1985 performance of Inside/Outside: Stages of Light, Kasten’s collaboration with choreographer Margaret Jenkins, for which she designed sets and costumes, and participated in lighting design. It looks like a Construct come to life, with dancers whirling, halting, and reversing direction, sleeves billowing as they step among the mirrors and objects onstage, moving among shadows and splashes of light.

Motion figures in more recent pieces as well. Axis (2015), a video installation created for the ICA, inhabits a spacious floodlit corner of the gallery. As projected shadows spin across the intersection of walls and floor, Axis entices us to step in and add our silhouettes to the dance.

Besides incorporating video, Kasten’s recent work revisits themes from the Construct series, but in a minimalist style: plexiglass, mirrors, sharp angles, clean edges, and little if any color. Studio Construct 17 (2007) is more dramatic because it is rendered monochromatically. White, black, and infinite shades of gray emphasize the content, placement, and texture in a way acid yellow and hot pink can’t. These strong, gorgeous landscapes attract the eye and invite the mind to wander. The works could be experienced repeatedly without becoming boring.

Kasten’s art looks like nothing in particular, so there is always something new to see in it. Interpretation is a matter of who’s looking and when. Her photographs are a Rorschach test, a mirror suspended between artist and viewer, ambiguous and probing.

Above right: Barbara Kasten, Construct 32, 1986, Cibachrome. (Courtesy of the artist)

Above left: Scene III, 2012, archival pigment print. (Courtesy of the artist)