Experimental Photoraphy from the 1970’s

Gallery Luisotti is pleased to present its upcoming exhibition, Barbara Kasten: Experimental Photography from the 1970s. Kasten will show a selection of her early cyanotype and photogram works in conjunction with the 20×24-inch Polaroid Constructs series, as well as a selection from the artist’s recently produced works. The exhibition marks Gallery Luisotti’s contribution to Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980.

Kasten’s early concern with the interplay between sculpture, light, and installation in her art mirrored the greater interest of the then burgeoning California light and space movement arising in the 1960s. Formally trained as a painter, and rooted in the visual dialogue of Constructivist art, Kasten’s work has been a continual practice of mediating and reconciling opposing ideas, from sculpture to photography, light to shadow, and objects to immateriality.

Kasten’s works of the era lends itself to questioning the limits of what a photographic work is. In her cyanotypes, the sculptural and the painterly melds with the practice of photographic printing, producing an image that becomes at once structural and graphic in apparition. Breaking down such categorical distinctions is at the core of her Constructs works. Produced first as a sculptural installation of geometric shapes, the staging of the work is equally indebted to the chromatic arrangement of colors and by the strategically placed lighting that vivifies the tableau. As documents of a new abstraction, Kasten’s works are prime examples of the conceptual shift taking place in art during the 70s – a period of critical examination of photography (and its philosophical underpinnings) that continues to inform the artist’s work to today.

Barbara Kasten has had numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Her works are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; J. Paul Getty Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; among many others. She has previously been awarded a Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships for her work.

Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented collaboration of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California, coming together to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene. Initiated through grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time will take place for six months beginning October 2011. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.