[Forum] Visual Arts Lecture Series: Jon Kessler at Bennington College

[Joshua Field]

February 28, 2007 - 7:30 PM
Visual Arts Lecture Series: Jon Kessler *(Open to the Public)*
Location: Bennington College, Tishman

New York based *artist* *Jon* *Kessler* uses Dada strategies of photo 
collage to create his video sculptures entitled /Swans/, based on the 
extreme makeover reality show. His massive installation, “The Palace at 
4 am” began at P.S. 1 in NYC and is now in Hamburg, Germany. He served 
as chair of Columbia University’s Art program from 2000-2005 and is 
currently a professor there.

*Kessler* was born in Yonkers, NY in 1957. He received a BFA from SUNY 
Purchase and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program. Since then 
he has exhibited widely in America, Europe and Asia. His recent 
exhibition at Deitch Projects, titled /Global Village Idiot,/ in the 
spring of 2004 was his first New York exhibition in ten years. Unlike 
his earlier works that were mounted on the wall and were often read as 
animated paintings, his newer works are all floor pieces and in 
Kessler's words, "insist on their sculpturalness." They are mechanical 
events to be experienced, not just looked at. His use of surveillance 
cameras is a new development, reflecting a post 9/11 sensibility, 
modeling a dystopic reality where life is compromised by a feeling of 
anxiety, fragility and terror.

http://www.jonkessler.com/