James Casebere

James Casebere
Casebere in April 2009
Born	1953 Lansing, Michigan
Nationality	American
Education	Minneapolis College of Art and Design B.F.A. CalArts M.F.A
Known for	Photography

Minneapolis College of Art and Design B.F.A.

James Casebere (born 1953) is an American contemporary artist and photographer living in New York.

Casebere, born in Lansing, Michigan, grew up outside of Detroit. He attended Michigan State University and graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design with a BFA in 1976. In the fall of 1977, he attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, and then moved to Los Angeles where he studied under John Baldessari and Doug Huebler. Classmates included Mike Kelley, and Tony Oursler. He received an MFA from CalArts in 1979. Since the late 1990s Casebere has lived and worked in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, with his wife, artist Lorna Simpson and their daughter Zora.

Casebere's early exhibitions in New York were at Artists Space, Franklin Furnace and the Sonnabend Gallery. His early work is associated with the so-called “Pictures Generation” of “post-modern” artists who emerged in the 1980s, including artists such as Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Laurie Simmons, Richard Prince, Matt Mullican, James Welling, Michael Zwack, Barbara Kruger and others. Since then, Casebere has devised complex models and photographed them in his studio. Referencing architecture, art history, and film, Casebere’s abandoned spaces are made from tabletop constructions of simple materials pared down to essential forms. Starting with Sonsbeek ’86, in Arnhem, Holland and ending around 1991, Casebere also made large scale sculptural installations.