Mika Rottenberg
12 March - 08 May 2011
 |
| | © Mika Rottenberg, Video still from "Tropical Breeze" (2004) |
| | |
Exceptional women, such as the
powerful Heather Foster, the sizeable Queen Raqui (‘Her body Utterly
Amazing, Her agility astounding’), and the super-tall erotic model
‘Bunny Glamazone’, become absurd characters who use their bodies as
production machines in the colourful films by the New York-based artist
Mika Rottenberg. This spring the films of Rottenberg (born in Buenos
Aires in 1976, but now living in New York) receive their Dutch première
in de Appel.
Linking together often bizarre scenes, Rottenberg presents enigmatic
working processes in which physical "waste materials” – such as blood,
sweat and tears, or hair and nails – create new products, sometimes
mixed up with salad or make-up. Rottenberg is said to make "seriously
political art that is preposterously funny”. In fact with her almost
surrealist films she comments on existing ideas about a woman’s right to
self-determination, the idealisation of the stereotype of the body and
the position of workers in a globalised capitalist economy. The starting
point in this is often the miraculous nature of reality. The artist has
said: "I see a lot of magic in so many mundane moments”. Rottenberg
presents her films in complex installations she has built, which consist
partly of her film decors and which she will re-create specially for
her exhibition in de Appel.
www.deappel.nl
 |
| | © Mika Rottenberg, Video still from "Dough" (2006) |
| | |
 |
| © Mika Rottenberg, Video still from "Squeeze" (2010)
Courtesy of Mary Boone Gallery in collaboration with Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery |
|
