Light is the Essential Element | Artist Barbara Kasten | Louisiana Channel

“Without the light, you don’t have shadows. And shadow can be another form. It can be in-depth. It can create space.” Artist Barbara Kasten has been experimenting with photography since the early 1970s. Watch her show and explain how she works with everything from fluorescent plexiglass to materials she finds in the hardware store. Barbara Kasten describes herself as a multi-media artist, even though most of her work centres around photography. She explains: “My work has always been abstract because I wasn’t trying to represent reality.” From her early studies in college and graduate school, she was introduced to and influenced by artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz and former Bauhaus professor László Moholy-Nagy. Especially Moholy-Nagy use of photograms caught Kasten’s attention, and it would later become a basis of her practice. “I’ve always been interested in construction and assembly.” Barbara Kasten grew up in Chicago, a city known for its spectacular architecture. “It affecte