This month sees the opening of Barbara Kasten’s first solo institutional exhibition in the UK, at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill On Sea.
Since the 1970s, Kasten has been constructing expansive installations made of architectural ‘props’ such as glass, mirror, metal, or wood constructions in front of the camera for her abstract ‘photographs’. Space as a stage for a changing reality is the central motif of her photographs and installations, which she produces in an ‘interdisciplinary performance’ between photography, sculpture, architecture, and painting.
At De La Warr Pavilion, Kasten has responded to the distinctive architectural features of the Grade I listed modernist building, re-conceiving the gallery’s windows, which look directly out to the English Channel, as a proscenium: a threshold between inside and outside space. Leaning against the glass will be a series of coloured, acrylic beams, the forms of which echo the architectural columns of the Pavilion, while throughout the gallery will be a series of stage flats constructed out of metal and mirror. Kasten imagines these as ‘movie screens’ that provide a cinematic experience for visitors across the site, through reflection and warping. Combined with stage lighting, these screens create a choreography of colour, light, and shadow throughout the space as its atmosphere changes with the weather outside.
Presented alongside this new commission is Kasten’s landmark series, Architectural Sites (1986–89). Made on location with a single exposure and no digital intervention, this body of work restages the architectural sites of several museums and institutions through bold colours and kaleidoscopic perspectives. As reconfigurations of architectural forms shifting from two to three dimensions, this photographic series speaks to Kasten’s transformation of the De La Warr Pavilion gallery itself, as she invites visitors to enter her theatrical construction and move through modernist form in real time.
Barbara Kasten
Site Lines
22 June–1 September 2024
Opening party:
Saturday 22 June, 4–6.30pm
De La Warr Pavilion
Marina
Bexhill On Sea
East Sussex
TN40 1DP