Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/barbara-kasten-16872" aria-label="More by Barbara Kasten" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Barbara Kasten</a>
13
Presented by David Knaus (Tate Americas Foundation) 2016
abstraction
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
fragmentation
geometric
monochromatic
non-representational
photogram
photographic
<p><span>Untitled 13</span> 1979 is a black and white photogram depicting a complex abstract arrangement of rectilinear shapes and lines by the American artist Barbara Kasten. The image is divided diagonally by a number of lines of varying weight and thickness. These lines appear to be part of a structure, only partially represented in the photograph. Just off-centre of the composition is a light-coloured cuboid, which some of the lines overlay, while others intersect. This composition is complicated further by other semi-translucent planes. Strong contrasts between light and dark tones give depth to the composition. The print comprises objects from Kasten’s studio along with solarised prints made earlier. Kasten layered the objects – including wires, mirrors and fragments of paper – over the prints and exposed them to a light source. This contributed a camera-less component to the photograph, resulting in a partial photogram.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
16 May 2016 – 7 December 2016
2016-12-07
16 May 2016 – 7 December 2016
2016-12-07
2016-05-16
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2016-05-16
Composing for the Camera
Collection based display
10 February 2018 – 11 December 2018
2018-12-11
10 February 2018 – 29 April 2018
2018-04-29
2018-02-10
Tate St Ives (St Ives, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/
26 May 2018 – 16 September 2018
2018-09-16
2018-05-26
Pallant House Gallery (Chichester, UK)
2 October 2018 – 11 December 2018
2018-12-11
2018-10-02
Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, UK)
http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
2018-02-10
Virginia Woolf
Exhibition
26 May 2018 – 9 December 2018
2018-12-09
26 May 2018 – 16 September 2018
2018-09-16
2018-05-26
Pallant House Gallery (Chichester, UK)
2 October 2018 – 9 December 2018
2018-12-09
2018-10-02
Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, UK)
http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
2018-05-26
Virginia Woolf
Loan-out
Untitled 13
support: 406 × 508 mm
frame: 648 × 801 × 31 mm
Presented by David Knaus (Tate Americas Foundation) 2016
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Untitled 13</i> 1979 is a black and white photogram depicting a complex abstract arrangement of rectilinear shapes and lines by the American artist Barbara Kasten. The image is divided diagonally by a number of lines of varying weight and thickness. These lines appear to be part of a structure, only partially represented in the photograph. Just off-centre of the composition is a light-coloured cuboid, which some of the lines overlay, while others intersect. This composition is complicated further by other semi-translucent planes. Strong contrasts between light and dark tones give depth to the composition. The print comprises objects from Kasten’s studio along with solarised prints made earlier. Kasten layered the objects – including wires, mirrors and fragments of paper – over the prints and exposed them to a light source. This contributed a camera-less component to the photograph, resulting in a partial photogram.</p>
<p>
<i>Untitled 13</i> is part of a series from 1979 called <i>Amalgam</i>, in which Kasten practised this process. Another related work from the series, <i>Untitled 11</i> 1979 (Tate L03804), is also in Tate’s collection. These were among Kasten’s earliest photographic works and some of the first resulting from her experimentation with the relationship between the process of painting and different photographic materials and techniques, as the title of the series suggests. Originally trained as a painter, Kasten went on to study photography at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Largely influenced by the California light and space movement of the 1960s, she began building large-scale models in her studio and photographing them, exploring the boundaries between sculpture, photography and installation. This led on to her photogram experiments, which informed the development of her practice from the 1970s onwards. These works are representative of the artist’s engagement with photographic materials and processes and their translations into a three and then two-dimensional objects. Kasten’s versatile practice references various categories of modernism, such as cubism, constructivism and abstract expression.</p>
<p>In the works that incorporate the photogram technique, Kasten investigated how the medium of photography can record through light the ambiguity of space and form. Realised in the studio and constructed solely for the camera, the photograms were created through the careful arrangement of shaped mirrors or constructed props made of industrial materials directly onto photographic paper. Kasten has explained: ‘The process of making complex shadows led me to photograms which were the entry point of my photographic career. Having a studio art background, the negative-positive photogram allowed me to explore the illusionist properties of photography with tangible sculptural materials and constructions.’ (Barbara Kasten, ‘Amalgam’, artist’s website, <a href="http://barbarakasten.net/amalgam/%231">http://barbarakasten.net/amalgam/#1</a>, accessed 18 June 2012.)</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>‘Barbara Kasten: The Edge of Vision Interview Series’, video produced on the occasion of the artist’s exhibition at Aperture Gallery, New York 2009, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76ARPrSiMJM&amp;feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76ARPrSiMJM&amp;feature=related</a>, accessed 18 June 2012.<br/>Anthony Pearson, ‘Set Pieces’, <i>Frieze</i>, no.143, November–December 2011, pp.112–20.</p>
<p>Gaia Tedone<br/>June 2012<br/>Revised Zmira Zilka<br/>February 2016</p>
</div>

Summary
2019-01-09T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
abstraction emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities fragmentation geometric monochromatic non-representational photogram photographic