James Casebere

For over 40 years, Casebere has been constructing and photographing architecturally inspired models, exploring the intersections of sculpture, photography, architecture, and film.

Biography of James Casebere

James Casebere was born in 1953 in Lansing, Michigan (USA). After earning a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1976, James Casebere furthered his studies at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York during the fall of 1977. He later relocated to Los Angeles, where he studied under the tutelage of John Baldessari and Doug Huebler. Casebere capped his academic journey with an MFA from CalArts in 1979.

Casebere's early exhibitions in New York took place at Artists Space, Franklin Furnace, and the Sonnabend Gallery. He was associated with the "Pictures Generation," a group of postmodern artists emerging in the 1980s. Since then, Casebere has been creating intricate models and photographing them in his studio.

In the early 1990s, Casebere shifted his focus to the architectural representation of different cultural institutions during The Enlightenment, particularly prisons. From the late 1990s onward, he began producing large photographs depicting flooded scenes, referencing various historical contexts such as the bunker under the Reichstag, sewers in Berlin, and the Atlantic slave trade.

His art is housed in prominent collections and has been exhibited in major museums globally, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London.

James Casebere's solo exhibitions include "Emotional Architecture" at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York (2017), "James Casebere: Fugitive" at Haus der Kunst in Munich (2016), "James Casebere" at Lisson Gallery in Milan (2015), among others.