In response to the wide range of emotions many of us experience lately, artist Martin Kersels is developing a glossary of feelings expressed through sound. In this first of two phases, Kersels shares sound expressions of seven emotions. For Phase 2, you're invited to add to the glossary!
Watch Martin Kersels discuss his second solo exhibition at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, Cover Story.
Mitchell-Innes & Nash is pleased to present a second performance of Monger, a new performance by Martin Kersels to accompany his current solo exhibition Cover Story.
At the beginning of the 1990s, Martin Kersels experimented with his body. As an active member of the group SHRIMPS (Paul Casey, Gayle Youngquist, Steve Nagler, Ryan Hill et Weba Garretson), he performed a series of familiar and simple gestures: holding, throwing, falling, kissing, cadencing, rocking; performances that oscillated between radicality and the absurd, both transpiring through the photographs taken during the performance. Simultaneously, he developed a 3-dimensional work guided by movement. Inspired by objects and the body language of daily life, Martin Kersels builds not only staged spaces where body and machine interact, but also animated sculptures producing incongruous actions and sounds. The bizarre dimension of his work is only a façade, his plastic work is in fact underpinned by a conceptual and critical reflexion on our relations to the world and society. The constant discussion between bodies, space, and the object is an integral part of his practice.
Martin Kersels often plays with what's maladapted, off, and decidedly out of shape. Kersels's playfulness often emerges from his own body—in a nod to his physique, Kersels once called a solo show "Heavyweight Champion"—and deeply informs two of his career interests, sound and physical comedy.
SculptureCenter, in collaboration with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, is thrilled to continue the artist-led lecture series Subjective Histories of Sculpture. This program, initiated in 2006, furthers SculptureCenter's exploration of how contemporary artists think about sculpture, its history, legacies, and potential for innovation.
This year, Martin Kersels, Agnieszka Kurant, and Allison Smith have been invited to present their own take on art history and consider the thematic focus of thingness.
Mitchell-Innes & Nash is pleased to announce Martin Kersels in Under Destruction October 15, 2010 – January 23, 2011 Destruction in art - 50 years after Tinguely's Homage to New York Group show in collaboration with the Swiss Institute, New York. Co-curated by Chris Sharp and Gianni Jetzer, Under Destruction opens in collaboration with the Swiss Institute, New York and features some twenty internationally known contemporary artists that examine the use and role of destruction in contemporary art.
Mitchell-Innes & Nash is pleased to announce that Martin Kersels is included in the 2010 Whitney Biennial. He has created a sculptural installation in the Lobby Gallery that also functions as a stage for curatorial programs involving artists, writers, musicians, choreographers, and DJs. Kersels will perform Friday April 2 at 7:30 pm as part of the Whitney's My Turn program in conjunction with the Biennial.