Mika Rottenberg and Jon Kessler have collaborated on unique “Seven” installation in Chelsea (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Nicole Klagsbrun Project
534 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Wednesday – Saturday through November 19, free, 2:00 – 8:00
www.nicoleklagsbrun.com
www.11.performa-arts.org
seven slideshow
In an inspired pairing, Performa 11 has brought together visual artists Mika Rottenberg and Jon Kessler for the delightful “Seven.” In such video-based works as “Mary’s Cherries,” “Cheese,” and “Squeeze,” Rottenberg, who was born in Argentina, raised in Israel, and is based in New York City, plays with time and space in short, complex films that are screened in specially designed architectural, sculptural surroundings, commenting on such themes as fetish, mass production, capitalism, rituals, and postcolonialism. For nearly thirty years, Yonkers-born artist and Columbia professor Jon Kessler has ingeniously utilized motors, lights, mirrors, and cameras in such kinetic sculptures as “Desert of the Real,” “Kessler’s Circus,” “Random Acts of Senseless Violence,” and “The Palace at 4 A.M.” “Seven” takes place in a laboratory where a technician is collecting the sweat off a rotating group of seven men and women who perspire in a glassed-in booth powered by a person on an exercise bicycle. Meanwhile, several monitors depict a small African desert community that is interacting with the technician; for example, when a man in Africa places a tube into a machine there, it pops out in the New York lab (and vice versa). Each person is identified by a different color of the rainbow, proceeding in order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, which also represent the seven primary chakras. Don’t just grab a seat and stay put for the “show” (which reminds us of the experiments conducted in the Hatch on the television series Lost, just without the inherent danger); instead, be sure to walk around and check out every aspect of this unique chakra juicer. If you’re lucky, the technician might even let you turn the dentist drill on and off, like we did. Performed by Empress Asia, Marshall Factora, Esteban Jefferson, Jason Liles, Chris McGinn, Cecil Parker, Sunita Sharma, Juan Valanzuela, and Alex Wynne, “Seven” runs every thirty-seven minutes between 2:00 and 7:18 through Saturday at Nicole Klagbrun Project in Chelsea; admission is free and first come, first served, and it is advised that you stay for the full duration, which includes a rather silly but fun grand finale.