Barbara Kasten
SHIFT
4 Mar – 30 Apr 2022
39 Walker

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Barbara Kasten, SHIFT, Installation view, Bortolami, New York, NY, 2022

Featuring four bodies of work, the show connects Barbara Kasten's little-known sculptures from the 1970s to her most recent output. Each artwork is tied to her experimentation with fiberglass window screening, a material she began using in the early 1970s and throughout her forty-year career.

Initially trained as a painter in the 1960s, Kasten shifted to textiles in her graduate years in the 1970s studying with renowned fiber artists Trude Guermonprez and Magdalena Abakanowicz. Window screening, a ubiquitous and utilitarian industrially-produced woven material, presented myriad possibilities. Taken by its physical nature and optical effects it produces when lit, Kasten also used the material as a basis to create not only sculptures but also her ethereal cyanotypes in the 1970s, another medium she has revisited intermittently over the last few decades.

Works

Installation view of displayed artwork titled SHIELD I

SHIELD I, 2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled SHIELD IV

SHIELD IV, 2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled SHIELD II

SHIELD II, 2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled SHIELD III

SHIELD III, 2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled PLAN 1-C

PLAN 1-C, 2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled PLAN 1-A

PLAN 1-A, 2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled PLAN 1-B

PLAN 1-B, 2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Reconstruction (Diamond)

Reconstruction (Diamond), 1974-2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Photogram Painting Untitled

Photogram Painting Untitled , 1977-2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Reconstruction (Pouf)

Reconstruction (Pouf), 1974-2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Reconstruction (Lama Glama)

Reconstruction (Lama Glama), 2022

Installation view of displayed artwork titled Photogram Painting Untitled

Photogram Painting Untitled, 1977-2014