Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery is pleased to present
Dough, a solo exhibition of videos,
sculptures and drawings by Mika Rottenberg. The
exhibition is on view from January 27th to February
25th, 2006, with a reception on Friday, January
27th, from 6 to 8 p.m.
"Bodies, at once
repulsive and sensual, larger-than-life and
ever-so-ordinary, are vital to factories: their
products appropriated; their shapes subsumed; their
excretions packaged; their quirks put to work. Here
is where the freakshow meets the sweatshop.
Factories take on the features of cages and
kitchens, their technology at once whimsical and
industrial. A pinwheel spins. Dough rises. A bicycle
chain ferries fingernails. Sweat is shrink-wrapped.
Virginity is conveyed along belts. An allergic
reaction becomes a force of production.
There is materialism and
anti-materialism. On the one hand, factories are
designed to the minute specification of material
substance: dough is subject to entropy and gravity,
yeast is subject to oxygen and heat, value is
subject to demand and supply, and bodies are subject
to growth and decay. While on the other hand, causal
processes violate expectations of space and time:
sweat drips too slowly to collect in that quantity;
dough is too thick to stretch that far; bodies are
too fragile to sit so stooped; life is too short to
labor that long.
There is at once a
contraction and expansion of human capability.
Persons, though full-blooded and able-bodied, have
their degrees of freedom constrained to a single
plane. Twist, pull, peddle, shove. Squeeze, blow,
wipe, crinkle. Yet, their seemingly useless
properties are finally utilized; their seemingly
monstrous attributes are finally actualized. A
sneeze is harnessed. Double-joints are wielded.
Gender becomes a motive force. Gigantism is yoked.
Obesity is deployed. Ethnicity provides traction.
In an economic climate
evermore set on circulation-based theories of value,
Mika Rottenberg's videos and drawings emphasizes the
centrality of labor. In a political climate evermore
set on delocalization, these works brings otherwise
disparate processes into a single frame of view. And
in a social climate evermore set on fragmentation
and depersonalization, Rottenberg's work emphasizes
whole persons and unique personalities." –Paul
Kockelman
Mika Rottenberg received
her MFA from Columbia University in 2004. She lives
and works in New York City. In 2005, her video
installation Tropical Breeze was included in
Greater New York at P.S.1 Contemporary Art
Center. Mary's Cherries (video installation,
2004) was included in New Works/New Acquisitions
at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Dough
(Oslo version) was included in Uncertain
States of America at the Astrup Fearnley Museum
of Modern Art in Oslo. Ms. Rottenberg's video
installations are part of the Guggenheim Museum and
The Museum of Modern Art collections, both in New
York, as well as the Astrup Fearnley Museum of
Modern Art in Oslo. This will be her first solo show
in New York.
Dough was realized
with the help of Paul Ruest of The Argot
Network.com
with sound design and sound installation, Kartin
Altecamp with special effects and Ann T. Rossetti
with videography.
Special thanks goes to Ms.
Julia Stoschek.
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery is located at 526 West 26th
Street, No. 213, in New York City. Gallery hours are
from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday,
or by appointment. To find out more about this
exhibition or to see more images, please email
gallery@nicoleklagsbrun.com
or call 212.243.3335.
