Barbara Kasten: The Diazotopes (Signed)

In 1973, American artist Barbara Kasten (born 1936) began experimenting with various photographic and printing techniques, resulting in a series of 24 diazotypes--a process used to produce architectural blueprints. For these staged mise-en-scène works, produced while Kasten lived in California, a female student was hired by the artist to pose in various photographs on a chair outdoors. In them, a kind of performance unfolds, in which the body becomes entangled in forms and shapes, the overlaid printed grid on the photographs emphasizing the human figure against a determined space. These images--with their clear Bauhaus influence, insistence on the two-dimensional plane and determined staging--initially appear to be totally unlike the abstract conceptual photography for which Kasten has become known, but are nonetheless a visible precursor to her later work. This unique artist's book marks the very first publication of the Diazotypes series, with each copy signed and numbered by Kasten.