Critic’s Pick:
In this exhibition, three works by Mika Rottenberg explore concepts of gender, race and class through everyday materials and narratives. The titular video installation Bowls Balls Souls Holes (AC & Plant variant) (2014), for example, is presented in a viewing room entered through a door covered in chewing gum and foil. The looping, 28-minute video shows a woman lying in a hotel room with a hole in the ceiling conducting the moon’s energy through her toes onto surrounding objects. In another scene, she announces letters and numbers during a bingo game in Harlem to an audience of all female players. Seen in full, the installation and video suggest narratives of collective labour and hyper-capitalism as intrinsic elements of what we might deem ‘luck’; bodies, class and gender become part of an industry wherein abstract ideas can manifest themselves as objects of value.
-- Emily McDermott
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