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. Much of Kessler’s work from the 1990s examined the interactions and tensions between
Orient and
Occident. He often presented Asia as a construct of Western
Orientalism, while at the same time portraying the West in a steady state of decline. Kessler blended these visions with equal parts humor and tragedy in pieces such as
The Last Birdrunner (1994), a kinetic sculpture based on the
science fiction movie
Blade Runner. Shown in a solo exhibition at the
Luhring Augustine Gallery in New York in 1994,
The Last Birdrunner consists of a stuffed bird outfitted in a parachute pack and perched on a ledge that slowly travels up and down while a motor-driven apparatus plays out a haunting dirge on a toy piano. Meanwhile, colored lights flicker in and out of focus against a
geodesic dome in the background so that the scene takes on the appearance – though none of the care-free energy – of a
Tokyo night club.
The Last Birdrunner represents, according to
Artforum critic Neville Wakefield, “the nemesis of … utopian dreams in the guise of a lonely cockatoo wearing a life vest.” Upon entering the installation through the cut-out crotch of a massive-scale
porn image, viewers are surrounded by surveillance cameras affixed to mechanisms that reproduce the lock and load click of
artillery as they turn. Cheap color televisions stacked into scattered mounds project the live feed from the surveillance cameras, while images of American soldiers entering
Saddam Hussein’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.” After debuting at
MoMA PS1,
Palace at 4 A.M. toured Europe, including a 2008 exhibition at the
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in
Denmark. In 2011, Kessler collaborated with artist
Mika Rottenberg on
SEVEN, a performance and installation created for
Performa 11 in New York City, performed at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery. 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. Kessler was the thesis advisor for
Emma Sulkowicz's
Mattress Performance art project. In April 2015, the student whom Sulkowicz had accused of rape sued Kessler, Columbia University, its trustees, and the university's president for discrimination and harassment, saying that Kessler had “publicly endorsed” Sulkowicz's project. That lawsuit was dismissed by a judge in March 2016. ==Exhibitions==