Jon Kessler

copyright Jon Kessler

I still fondly remember an exhibit I watched sometime in the 90's at Kestner Gesellschaft in Hannover, Germany, entitled Jon Kessler's Asia . Being from New York, Kessler would go to Chinatown and buy all sort of objects, figurines, etc. used as decor for Chinese restaurants and then playfully remix these found objects in his studio, making mechanical kinetic sculptures out of them. I recently looked up John Kessler at Google and came across his site here. Fortunately, there are little videos of the work that can be found on his site as well....

There is an article @ Frieze about this body of work here

Recently Kessler has been channeling his focus as the Drawing Center puts it on..."the mass media's infatuation with disaster, war, sex, and celebrity. In his new series of drawings, Kessler creates portraits by taking found representations culled from the worlds of fashion, celebrity culture, and contemporary politics and reconfiguring them to reflect on the spectacle of American power and the instant access to images of objectification and violence. Based on the idea of “the portrait as a metaphor for captivity,” Kessler's new body of work confronts the convergence of advertising, propaganda, surveillance, and technology that threatens to undermine democratic politics. "
...review of Drawing Center here
...Web Gallery courtesy of Drawing Center here