Jon Kessler

Jon Kessler

Jon Kessler is an American artist who was born in Yonkers, New York in 1957. He began college at SUNY Purchase from 1974—78 but left after two years to travel in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. He returned to Purchase in 1978 and graduated in 1980 with honors. Following graduation, Kessler took up a studio in Brooklyn, New York where he continues to work today. He was one of the founders of the Bozart toy company and currently teaches at Columbia University. He also plays guitar for the X-Patsys, a band he started with artist Robert Longo and actress Barbara Sukowa.

Work

Kessler is best known for his kinetic sculptures that leave the mechanics exposed for the viewer. His work often combines centuries-old analog mechanisms with digital technology to explore the runoff of consumerist, “post-utopian” societies. [Webel, Peter. "Jon Kessler's Post-Utopian Visions." Jon Kessler's Asia, catalog essay. 1994.]

" critic Neville Wakefield, “the nemesis of … utopian dreams in the guise of a lonely cockatoo wearing a life vest.”

’s palace loom large on the wall. Here Kessler signals the demise of utopia by depicting the world as a “pell-mell kaleidoscopic mishmash… where all hell breaks loose all the time and human life is twisted as readily as metal.”

Kessler’s aesthetic has shifted as well: in contrast with the meditative, self-contained sculptures he made previously, his works in "Palace at 4 A.M." are raw, sprawling, duct-taped, and crisscrossed with electrical cables. “You spend all your time polishing metal,” Kessler is quoted as saying of his earlier work. “That refinement is like a trap, and it sends the viewers’ eyes to the wrong place and breaks trust with them, with a sense of authenticity. This … show is about exposing mechanisms – of the sculpture, and of our culture now.” [Madoff, Steven Henry. "What Has 300 Eyes, 40 Whizzing, Whirring Arms, and Opposes the War?" "The New York Times". October 23, 2005] "Palace at 4 A.M." continues to tour Europe and will soon open at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.

Kessler has recently expanded his practice of drawing and is currently working on a project with Dieu Donné, a papermaking studio in Manhattan, New York.

Exhibition History

Kessler was included in the International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1983, and took part in the 1985 Whitney Biennial. He has since held one person exhibitions at Carnegie in Pittsburgh, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and Deitch Projects and P.S.1 in New York.

His work is also in many permanent collections, including those of the MoMA, the Whitney Museum, MOCA, The Walker Art Center, and the Israel Museum.

He is currently represented by Deitch Projects in New York, Hans Mayer in Düsseldorf, Germany, and Arndt and Partner in Berlin, Germany.

Awards

Kessler received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1983 and again in 1985, the St. Gaudens Memorial award in 1995, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, and a Foundation for the Performing Arts Fellowship in 2001.

References

External links

* [http://www.jonkessler.com/ Jon Kessler official website]
* [http://www.deitch.com/ Deitch Gallery website]
* [http://www.galeriemayer.de/ Hans Mayer Gallery website]
* [http://www.arndt-partner.de/ Arndt & Partner website]


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