This year, the iconic Glass House in New Canaan, becomes a living canvas for celebrated artist Barbara Kasten. The exhibition, Structure, Light, Land, spans the entire 49-acre site, activating not just the architecture of Philip Johnson’s 1949 Glass House but also its surrounding structures with Kasten’s signature interplay of abstraction, architecture and optical experimentation
Kasten, born in 1936, is best known for transforming photography into a three-dimensional experience. Drawing from her background in sculpture and set design, she constructs geometric compositions using light, mirrors, colored plexiglass and industrial materials. Over her five-decade career, she has developed iconic series including Architectural Sites, Collisions and Progressions—several of which are featured in this site-specific exhibition alongside new cyanotypes, digital projections and sculptures made expressly for the Glass House. “She created multiple series artworks including Architectural Sites and new iterations of digital projections, cyanotypes and sculptures located throughout the site,” says Christa Carr, Director of Communications at the Glass House.
The Glass House itself features a transparent sculpture, created to respond directly to the building’s seamless boundaries between inside and out. In the Brick House and Painting Gallery, viewers encounter Kasten’s intimate, saturated paintings, adding a new layer of interior abstraction. Inside Da Monsta, Kasten has installed a grouping of vivid geometric blocks—small, colorful sculptural works that assert their presence against the expressive curves and all-white interior of Johnson’s postmodern structure. In the Sculpture Gallery, colorful I-beam pieces stretch across the tiered interior, creating a contrast between the site’s permanent exhibit and Kasten’s pieces. On the landscape itself, additional I-beams are positioned to echo the site’s topography, creating lines of tension between nature and industry.
Structure, Light, Land is more than a retrospective—it’s a spatial dialogue between Kasten’s evolving vision and one of modernism’s most revered architectural sites. Through color, reflection and scale, the exhibition reframes The Glass House as both subject and stage.
Kasten’s work has been featured in world-renowned museums such as The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Guggenheim. The Glass House is proud to present this collection on display through December 15. Tickets to The Glass House can be purchased at theglasshouse.org.