Jesse Bercowetz:

About

A newly commissioned piece, Bercowetz's work will manifest itself as the result of a process of collaboration and dialogue. Taking Alma's new manifesto into account Bercowetz has created the work in his New York studio according to plans of the space and an ongoing dialogue with the curators. The installation has then been constructed in London by Alma Enterprises according to a loose set of guidelines; the resulting work attains an important performative element utilizing the spirit of mail art and collaboration.

Bercowetz says of the project: "The work will embody Alma Enterprises' manifesto of site-specificity while presenting the viewer with a collage of themes that are of the moment: political, cultural and personal, enticing and challenging the viewer to explore beyond their threshold of comfort by examining the highly detailed themes embedded into hanging elements and the textured surface of the piece.

The images come from my personal archives: drawings, sketches, poems, travel photos, appropriated images of war, fashion, occult, political prisoners, cartoons, missing children... (a sample of the things that I am concerned with). I have taken these snips of charged issues and pasted them into a kinetic collage resembling a chandelier or a jelly fish. It becomes an abstraction with many stories, subplots and moments for the viewer to engage with following their own path through the installation. Find a portal, dead end or impale an eyeball."

"The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something because it is always before one's eyes) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all." Wittgenstein

A Limited edition artist book with a hand sanded cover accompanies the exhibition.

A special thanks to Suzanne Goldenberg, Derek Eller Gallery and the New York Foundation for the Arts.