Temple VIII 1996

Curator: This is Barbara Kasten’s photographic work, “Temple VIII,” currently residing here at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: Well, it's certainly eye-catching. The intense magenta and peach hues give it an almost dreamlike quality. Are we looking at abstractions of architectural forms, perhaps? Curator: Exactly. Kasten's work interrogates photography by manipulating light and shadow on set constructions, thus exploring the photograph as a constructed image, not a captured reality. Editor: Right, it's about revealing the mechanics of image creation. I wonder about the materials she used to achieve these effects – gels, mirrors, perhaps even colored lights playing on geometric shapes. Curator: Indeed. Kasten challenges the assumed indexicality of photography, reminding viewers of the performative aspect inherent in image-making. This piece certainly questions our notions of photography’s truth claim. Editor: And places the emphasis on the artist’s agency in transforming raw materials into something entirely new. I like that. It's less about documentation and more about intervention. Curator: Precisely. A powerful demonstration of the artistic choices shaping the photographic image we receive. Editor: It definitely reframes the way I think about photographic processes and how they become tools of social representation.