Mika Rottenberg: Cosmic Generator Favorite 

Cosmic Generator presents a network of characters working in nonsensical, and at times absurd, economies. Artist Mika Rottenberg uses footage from actual discount dollar stores in Calexico, CA; Mexicali, Mexico; and Yiwu, China to recreate the imaginary “life” of a product, from its production in the factory to the moment it is sold. The segments are regularly interrupted by depictions of surreal tunnels, which represent the structures that Chinese residents of Mexicali supposedly dug under their homes and shops to travel surreptitiously to Calexico.

Mika Rottenberg creates these elaborate visual narratives to explore the seduction and magic, but also desperation, of our hypercapitalist, globally connected reality, exposing and probing labor, globalization, the production of value, and how our relationships to the world, and to one another, are increasingly monetized.

New York-based artist Mika Rottenberg (b. 1976, Buenos Aires) is devoted to a rigorous practice that combines traditions of cinema and sculpture. Born in Argentina, Rottenberg spent her formative years in Israel, then moved to the U.S. where she earned her B.A. from the School of Visual Arts in New York and an M.F.A. from Columbia University in 2004. Recent exhibitions of her work have been presented at Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark, and include the solo exhibition Easypieces at the New Museum in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto. Rottenberg was the recipient of the 2019 Kurt Schwitters Prize, which recognizes artists who have made a significant contribution to the field of contemporary art. In 2018, she was awarded the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s James Dicke Contemporary Artist Prize, which recognizes an artist younger than 50 who has produced a significant body of work and consistently demonstrates exceptional creativity.