Barbara Kasten’s early work in fiber and deep investment in the experimental ethos of the early avant-gardes serves as a departure point for this wide-ranging discussion of materiality and artistic influence. Consider how artists view, absorb, and respond to works from previous generations and how the stakes of modernist aesthetics have changed over time. Join New York-based artist Sarah Crowner and art historians Christine Poggi (University of Pennsylvania) and Jenni Sorkin (University of California, Santa Barbara) as we unpack the intersections between art, craft, and design as they relate to questions of artistic labor, gender, and performativity.

Sarah Crowner is a Philadelphia-born artist based in Brooklyn. Solo and group venues include the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; White Columns, New York; the Whitney Biennial, New York; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; de Appel, Amsterdam; Culturgest, Lisbon; and DAAD Galerie, Berlin. Crowner received her BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her MFA from Hunter College.

Christine Poggi is Professor of modern and contemporary art and criticism in the History of Art Department at The University of Pennsylvania. Professor Poggi received her Master’s degree from the University of Chicago, and her PhD from Yale University. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Poggi has authored and edited numerous publications including Inventing Futurism: The Art and Politics of Artificial Optimism (Princeton University Press, 2009).

Jenni Sorkin is an Associate Professor at the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California Santa Barbara. Sorkin writes on the intersection between gender, material culture, and contemporary art. Her writing has appeared in the New Art Examiner, Art Journal, Art Monthly, Frieze, The Journal of Modern Craft, Modern Painters, and Third Text. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, and the Getty Research Institute, and an ACLS/Luce Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in American Art.
Barbara Kasten: StagesKasten Considered: Postmodernism in the Present, Peter Shire and Martino Gamper in conversation Kasten in Context: New Peers: Barbara Kasten in conversation with David Hartt, Takeshi Murata, and Sara VanDerBeek