James Casebere was born in Lansing, Michigan, and received his BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and his MFA from Cal Arts. Part of the Pictures Generation of postmodern artists such as Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, and others, Casebere has been at the forefront of constructive photography. His process involves creating tabletop sized models out of modest materials such as Styrofoam and cardboard and then dramatically lighting the model to set the mood for the subsequent photograph. The photographs are always unpopulated, inviting the viewers to project themselves into the space. In his early works, Casebere used crudely cut and assembled pieces of cardboard to create places where ordinary objects ended up in absurd situations, such as in Fork in the Refrigerator and Fan as a Eudemonist: Relaxing after an Exhausting Day at the Beach. He has subsequently created works centered upon the suburban home; prisons; the Atlantic slave trade; globalization; and Spain and the Eastern Mediterranean, among others.
His works are held by institutions including the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Mary O'Donnell Hulme
