Jon Kessler was born in Yonkers, New York in 1957. After receiving his BFA at SUNY Purchase in 1980 he participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Since that time he has maintained his studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
His first exhibition was at Artist’s Space in 1983. Since that time he has exhibited widely in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe and Asia. A retrospective of his work ”Jon Kessler’s Asia” was mounted at the Kestner-Gesselshaft in Hannover, Germany in 1994 and traveled throughout Europe. His exhibition, “The Palace at 4 AM”, began at MoMA PS1 in 2005 and travelled to the Sammlung Falckenberg in Hamburg, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen and ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. His recent exhibition “The Web” at Swiss Institute and Museum Tinguely explored the connection between bodily movement and technical apparatus, deploying mechanisms, live video and an iPhone app to facilitate this relationship.
His works are in many public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art and MOCA. He is a Professor in the Visual Arts Division of Columbia University’s School of the Arts where he has taught since 1994. He plays guitar in several art rock bands.
Sanford Biggers interdisciplinary artistic practice integrates film/video, installation, sculpture, painting, original music and performance. He intentionally complicate issues such as hip hop, Buddhism, politics, identity, high vs vernacular culture, American history and art history through the use of loaded materials and references and evocative modes of display. His work opens viewers to new perspectives and associations to established symbols and histories while remaining dedicated to formal concerns. Sanford makes objects, images and sound oriented “vignettes” that strive to be as aesthetically engaging as they are conceptual.
