Mika Rottenberg

Biography

Mika Rottenberg was born in 1976 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, and now lives and works in upstate New York. Working in video, installation, and sculpture, Rottenberg is interested in making reality blend with her personal fiction; she features women with unconventional bodies in performances about labor, production, and the psychological implications of physical existence.

For instance, in Rottenberg’s 2004 video Mary’s Cherries , the amply endowed fetish wrestler Rock Rose rides a stationary bike that is part of a factory where women’s nails are harvested and turned into maraschino cherries. The artist describes her art as trying to capture the abstract experience of being alive and to transform it into a tangible object.