Artist Mika Rottenberg’s films are absurd, slightly grotesque, and above all, completely mesmerizing. In them, she creates complex fictions about how everyday objects are produced (think maraschino cherries made from pounded down red acrylic nails, or tissue papers moistened by the sweat of a body builder). In this alternate industrial reality, objects are manufactured via preposterous contraptions and gadgets with enough chutes, tunnels, and zip-lines to befit a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. Unsurprisingly, the people who work in these twisted factories are simultaneously sensuous and stomach-turning—obese and extraordinarily tall bodies work in claustrophobic spaces where bare bottoms and tongues protrude from small openings.
Rottenberg’s newest exhibition, Bowls Balls Souls Holes, opening at Andrea Rosen Gallery today, is a hypnotic story about the cosmic phenomena behind global warming, told through bizarre characters in a Harlem bingo hall. The players in the film (including GARRY STRETCH, who holds the Guinness World Record for having the stretchiest skin) seemingly embody the clash between the opposing forces dictating the earth's climate. Inside the gallery, the film is screened in a small theater situated among an installation replicating sets and props from the movie, such as water dripping from a radiator into a frying pan and a revolving door at the entrance.
We sat down with Rottenberg last week as she put the final touches on the installation.
Rottenberg’s newest exhibition, Bowls Balls Souls Holes, opening at Andrea Rosen Gallery today, is a hypnotic story about the cosmic phenomena behind global warming, told through bizarre characters in a Harlem bingo hall. The players in the film (including GARRY STRETCH, who holds the Guinness World Record for having the stretchiest skin) seemingly embody the clash between the opposing forces dictating the earth's climate. Inside the gallery, the film is screened in a small theater situated among an installation replicating sets and props from the movie, such as water dripping from a radiator into a frying pan and a revolving door at the entrance.
We sat down with Rottenberg last week as she put the final touches on the installation.
SHANNAN ELINOR SMITH: Can you tell me about your fascination with infomercials?
MIKA ROTTENBERG: I like how they present a solution to things that are not necessarily a problem and make this whole narrative around this one little object, so it’s sort of like art. I’m fascinated by the level of inventions that come out of the same kind of information, repeated over and over. There is something kind of poetic about that. And they are really beautifully made, shot very cleanly.
Can you tell me about the people you use in your videos? How do you find them?
When I started, I would cast them mostly from [the Internet]. I really wanted to work with people who already advertised themselves for hire. Basically, they would advertise one aspect of their body, sometimes even a handicap that they made into a money-making job. So I was interested in that, and how it is degrading and empowering at the same time. That’s how I would cast people in my earlier work. Now, it is a little more open. I never work with actors; I like to use people for what they are. It’s more like the piece fits them, not they fit the piece. The Guinness Book of World Records is also a great place to cast from. So in the video for Bowls Balls Souls Holes, Gary, the one who puts the clothespins on his face, is a Guinness-holder, and the other people in the video actually work [at] or go to the bingo.
Many of your videos take place in factories, for instance Squeeze and Tropical Breeze. Why are you fascinated with this setting?
It is about production. We are all so occupied by production. It is also a metaphor for the studio. I guess it is a metaphor for something bigger as well and not necessarily about facto
MIKA ROTTENBERG: I like how they present a solution to things that are not necessarily a problem and make this whole narrative around this one little object, so it’s sort of like art. I’m fascinated by the level of inventions that come out of the same kind of information, repeated over and over. There is something kind of poetic about that. And they are really beautifully made, shot very cleanly.
Can you tell me about the people you use in your videos? How do you find them?
When I started, I would cast them mostly from [the Internet]. I really wanted to work with people who already advertised themselves for hire. Basically, they would advertise one aspect of their body, sometimes even a handicap that they made into a money-making job. So I was interested in that, and how it is degrading and empowering at the same time. That’s how I would cast people in my earlier work. Now, it is a little more open. I never work with actors; I like to use people for what they are. It’s more like the piece fits them, not they fit the piece. The Guinness Book of World Records is also a great place to cast from. So in the video for Bowls Balls Souls Holes, Gary, the one who puts the clothespins on his face, is a Guinness-holder, and the other people in the video actually work [at] or go to the bingo.
Many of your videos take place in factories, for instance Squeeze and Tropical Breeze. Why are you fascinated with this setting?
It is about production. We are all so occupied by production. It is also a metaphor for the studio. I guess it is a metaphor for something bigger as well and not necessarily about facto