11/3/99

Diane Manuel, News Service (650) 725-1945; e-mail: dmanuel@leland.stanford.edu

Performance artist to appear Nov. 11

Martin Kersels, a specialist in collaborative performance, film, video and sound installations, will give a talk at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11, in Annenberg Auditorium.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Kersels is the first visiting lecturer in the 1999-2000 Stanford Studio Series sponsored by the Department of Art and Art History. A Los Angeles-based artist, he was a member of the performance group Shrimps from 1983 to 1993, and also has performed in New York, San Diego, Chicago and Minneapolis. His work has been included in group exhibitions in Paris and at the 1997 Whitney Biennial.

Currently involved in making "performative objects," Kersels explores, with characteristic humor, themes of gravity and the human form. Recent pieces include a baby grand piano that winches itself across the floor of a gallery, a desk rigged to play musical accompaniments to business transactions and a rubber band-powered prosthetic leg.

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