Juxtaposition: Site 2 1988

Barbara Kasten made this chromogenic color print, "Juxtaposition: Site 2", at an unspecified date. It brings together the gestural abstraction of Jackson Pollock with an apparently unrelated image of the built environment. Kasten’s choice of the term ‘juxtaposition’ gives a clue that this work may be as much about art institutions as it is about art. The high art of the mid-century, exemplified by Pollock, is placed alongside something else. It may be a view from a window or a photograph of a model. The work self-consciously invites debate about how the art world and its institutional structures encourage us to see. Does the work invite us to question the authority of museums and galleries? Does it suggest new ways of seeing high art? As historians, we can only speculate without further research. It would be good to investigate exhibition records and critical reviews in order to get a better sense of the artist’s intention and how audiences have received the work.