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[energetic electronic music]

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Barbara Kasten: I think being an artist was[br]a determination I made just because I like

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making things.

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♪ ♪

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It was really this need to express myself,[br]to make a mark that was my own.

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But I never consciously did that.

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It just seemed to be part of my DNA.

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And I just kept going and going and going.

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And if you want to be who you are, you just[br]have to believe in what's inside of you.

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My father was a policeman in Chicago.

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My mother was a sales clerk.

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I had a really great childhood.

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I was in a Catholic parochial grammar school.

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And one of the nuns, who was a painter herself,[br]saw some talent in what I was doing.

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I think her ultimate goal was to make me another[br]nun, but... [chuckles] that was probably part

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of the plan.

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But she encouraged me to paint and gave me[br]some lessons herself and also took me to the

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Art Institute in Chicago.

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And so from that time on, I[br]thought of myself as being an artist.

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I didn't get interested in photography until[br]I was enrolled at the California College of

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Arts and Crafts in grad school, and experimented[br]there with some photographic techniques but

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on textiles.

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They were like photo silk-screening.

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So I played around with photography but never[br]resulting in a photograph, always resulting

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in an object.

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I never think of photography as recording[br]life in general.

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For me, photography was an experimental medium.

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So this was done in 1975.

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And this is my first attempt at photography.

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Um, and it's a basic[br]photographic process.

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It's called cyanotype.

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And I've used this process over and over again.

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There's no camera involved.

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When it's exposed and when it's washed, it[br]turns blue.

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This is material placed directly onto paper[br]and then exposed to light.

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The material which looks like very filmy netting[br]is actually industrial window screening.

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So there was a lot of material experimentation[br]and a lot of mix of media between painting

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and drawing and photographic techniques.

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Not until several years later did I pick up[br]a camera.

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The camera records something.

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It has to have an object.

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Um, and yet my direction is to question the reality[br]of that object, to make that object appear

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elusive.

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And that happens with the use of light.

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A lot of my work is based on the idea of translating[br]3-D into 2-D.

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I haven't used digital manipulation.

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There's no changing of the image.

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There's no moving of forms.

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There's no reverse coloring.

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What you see in the back of the camera is[br]what's recorded on the film.

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And that is the image that I[br]produce.

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The physicality of the transparent sheet of[br]Plexiglas has no representational value.

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It's just something you look through.

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It's transparent.

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Um, but when you hit it with[br]light, the physicality of it is manifest.

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And so you see the shadows.

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I select a position for the camera.

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And then I usually leave the camera in that[br]position.

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I put together the pieces and find a point[br]at which they stand on their own so that there's

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a little bit of tension there but enough that[br]they will stand.

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And if it's one fraction of an[br]inch one way or another, the whole thing will collapse,

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which it has done on me many times, actually.

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And I start all over again.

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So it's a constant process of being in the[br]set, moving the lights, going behind the camera,

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looking at the image that's resulting.

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I mean, that could take hours, actually.

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And when I get to a point where I think it's[br]looking pretty interesting, then I'll make

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an exposure on a piece of film.

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[light electronic music]

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I always think of myself as actually photographing[br]the shadows, not the light.

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♪ ♪

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[indistinct chatter]

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I think the fact that I was experimenting[br]in photography--and I'd been doing it for

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so many years--against the mainstream of what[br]photography has been about, has really appealed

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to a lot of young women and men who are working[br]in the same manner.

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[Alex Klein] We are having a Barbara moment now.

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I think Barbara is something of an artist's[br]artist.

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For a younger generation of artists working[br]today, I think that they've found a model

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in Barbara, someone who's really working at[br]the intersection of sculpture, photography,

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performance.

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And, um, they've also found a[br]new peer.

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[energetic music]

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[Sheree Hovsepian] Really, she was the [br]first one that had me

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thinking about what a photograph could actually[br]be, how it could push the boundaries between

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sculpture and space, and that it doesn't have[br]to necessarily

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talk about a scene out of the world.

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It could be something constructed.

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And that was really influential to my own[br]practice.

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[Barbara Kasten] I like the idea of questioning.

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I think it relates to everything we do in[br]life, actually.

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We should be able to look at what's happening[br]around us and find other ways of looking at

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it and find other means of interpretation.

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I think the broadening part of the work is,[br]like, for instance, now getting into video

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and doing video installations.

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It's still the same vision, but it's translated[br]in a different way.

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[synth music]

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Video actually was probably-uh,[br]resulted from the dance collaboration

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that I did with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company.

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I designed the set.

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I designed the costumes.

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And the--the elements of the set were all[br]very moveable, so the figure, the form was

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moving these props around within space.

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And that's what I can do now with the video.

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At the moment, I'm working with corners, um, and[br]activating a very basic architectural element.

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[Kate Bowen] So now I can rotate through[br]each of these colors.

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Um, and then I can bring that[br]back down.

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[Barbara Kasten] OK. Yeah, do each color, um, and rotate them.[br]

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— OK.

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In my work, I try to find that [br]uniqueness of

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what's in the world and highlight it with[br]light.

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When you turn on the projector, the light[br]penetrates the atmosphere, and, suddenly,

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there's dust, there's particles.

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There are things that live there that we don't[br]see until the light hits it.

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That's the kind of discovery I like making.

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— This is as well as lined up with the [br]corner as you can get it, right?

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— I think so. I think if we get[br]it any closer, we're...

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[Barbara Kasten] As I continue to make [br]the videos now, I'm adding

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3-dimensional forms within the video.

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So they're very much sculpture as well as[br]video.

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[pulsing music]

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I grew up in Bridgeport, which is like 10[br]minutes away from downtown Chicago.

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I've always loved living in the city.

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Chicago is a city of architecture, so it had[br]an influence on me.

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I think there's an identity with the urban[br]landscape of skyscrapers to the kind of work

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that I do because, first of all, most of my[br]images are vertical.

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And the geometry adds up to looking very architectural.

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♪ ♪

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[indistinct chatter]

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— It is such a pleasure to[br]welcome you all here

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for the opening of [br]"Barbara Kasten: Stages."

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[indistinct chatter]

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[Barbara Kasten] It's amazing to see this kind of response[br]at this point in time.

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And I'm happy that there's inspiration in[br]what I do.

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But I think it's really the fact that I have[br]lasted this long, that I'm determined to be

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an artist and just kept working at it and[br]working at it.

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And that's what my life has been about.

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The most important part I keep going back[br]to is that it is the process.

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It is the actual living and doing and making[br]that is the rewarding part.

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For me, it's a, uh, pleasure.

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It's, um, frustrating. It's[br]fabulous.

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It's horrible.

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It's all of those emotions all wrapped into[br]one.

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But I couldn't do anything else.

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[camera clicks]

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[soft electronic music]