New Directions: Noah Klersfeld

Now on view on MAM's outdoor video monitors, Noah Klersfeld's recent series of videos Party in the Bathroom transforms mundane bathroom floor tiles into spectacles of lights, patterns, rhythms, and colors. Five different videos are played sequentially on each monitor, which are synchronized. The artist filmed these works in the bathrooms of friends, colleagues, bars, restaurants, and hotels. As he flicks the overhead lights on and off, the colors in the tile floors appear to transform, yet their varying patterns and hues are actually the result of changing levels of light and shade, enhanced by a meticulous digital cutting and layering technique. The resulting abstract compositions exploit the formal potential of digital video, and make a tongue-in-cheek reference to the history of abstract painting. Additionally, the artist explains, these works offer a lighthearted acknowledgement of “the bathroom as an unexplored space of psychological and emotional complexity,” pointing to the many different activities—and states of mind—that take place in the bathroom.

Noah Klersfeld (b. 1973) is a video artist and architect living and working in New York City. He earned his BFA and BARCH from the Rhode Island School of Design and attended The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He is currently a resident artist at The Elizabeth Foundation for The Arts.

This exhibition is also part of MAM’s New Directions series, the centerpiece of our contemporary art program. New Directions was founded in 2011 to engage the community with new work that is at once accessible and thought provoking.