Although Jon Kessler tends nowadays toward immersive, interactive installations crowded with closed-circuit cameras, flatscreen monitors, iPads and other technological gizmos, he initially made a name for himself in the 1980s with mechanical contraptions that were at once complicated and surreal. Their spirit is revived with this group of absurdly whimsical mobiles and animated sculptures assembled from souvenirs, store-bought tchotchkes, tiny motors and assorted elements the artist made by hand. Originally created over the years as presents for family and friends, they’re joined by new examples made for this show.
The Lady—Juliette Kessler’s 16th Birthday Gift (2010) transforms his daughter’s favorite doll into an animatronic marionette set atop a red box containing the wheels that pull its strings; an opening in the front reveals its inner workings. Barbara Sukowa’s 60th Birthday Gift (2010) is a sinuous, rotating balancing act of wires delicately dangling the numbers 6 and 0 while perched on an aluminum cast of Kessler’s upright thumb. A motion detector activates Sarah Hoover and Tom Sachs Wedding Gift (2013), causing a sequence in which a rod protruding from the crotch of a kneeling, bare-chested action figure thrusts against a pair of vertical rods (topped with the letters T and S, respectively), making them jiggle.
Beautifully displayed on gray plinths wrapped around the gallery’s old wooden columns and lit like diamonds in a jewelry store, the objects in this show glow with the warmth of an artist who has a big heart and an equally expansive imagination.—Paul Laster