Saturday, September 9, 2023 | 1pm
ADMISSION: Free with advance registration
In conjunction with the CJM exhibition Mika Rottenberg: Spaghetti Blockchain, The CJM and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will co-present a screening of artist Mika Rottenberg's first feature-length film, REMOTE, at SFMOMA in the Phillis Wattis Theater. Before the screening, enjoy a conversation with Rottenberg, co-creator Mahyad Tousi, and CJM Senior Curator Heidi Rabben.
Co-created by Mika Rottenberg and Mahyad Tousi during the COVID-19 pandemic, REMOTE is set in a post-pandemic near future. The film follows Unoaku (Okwui Okpokwasili) and four other women living in different parts of the world—all of them fans of a popular South Korean dog-groomer-performer (Joony Kim)—who discover a mysterious portal hidden in each of their homes with universe-altering consequences.
This screening will take place offsite in SFMOMA's Phyllis Wattis Theater. Admission to this program is free with advance registration.
One of the most innovative and internationally acclaimed artists working today, New York–based Mika Rottenberg employs a disarmingly absurd sense of humor to probe at the interactions between labor, economics, and human value, exposing the unsettling irony of increasing emotional alienation in a powerfully globally connected world. This exhibition presents Rottenberg’s most prominent videos, installations, and sculptures of the past decade, featuring immersive and highly stylized works that explore how life in a globalized economy is more bizarre than we can possibly imagine.
Born in Buenos Aires in 1976, Mika Rottenberg spent her formative years in Israel then moved to the U.S., where she earned her BA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and followed this with an MFA at Columbia in 2004. Rottenberg has been the recipient of prestigious prizes including the 2019 Kurt Schwitters Prize and the 2018 Smithsonian American Art Museum’s James Dicke Contemporary Artist Prize. Her work is represented in numerous major museum and public collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum, National Gallery of Canada, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Rose Art Museum.
Mahyad Tousi is in the business of storytelling. A multidisciplinary artist, writer, and producer, he is the co-founder of BoomGen Studios and founder of Starfish Accelerator, which amplifies the voices of underrepresented artists and entrepreneurs. He was the executive producer of CBS primetime comedy UNITED STATES OF AL. Currently, he is writing 1001, a sci-fi adaptation of The Tales from a Thousand and One Nights. His directorial debut, REMOTE, premiered in fall 2022, including at the New York Film Festival (Currents Selection) and at the Tate Modern. He sits on the advisory board of MIT’S Center for Advanced Virtuality and speaks internationally on the convergence of the arts and social impact.
Major support for Mika Rottenberg: Spaghetti Blockchain is generously provided by Mike and Kaitlyn Krieger, Andy and Deborah Rappaport, and Roselyne C. Swig.
Header image: Mika Rottenberg and Mahyad Tousi, REMOTE (film still), 2022.© Mika Rottenberg and Mahyad Tousi. Courtesy the artists and Hauser & Wirth.
Exhibition image: Mika Rottenberg, Cosmic Generator (video still), 2017. Commissioned by Skulptur Projekte Münster. Produced with generous support from Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; Outset Contemporary Art Fund, London, U.K.; and Polyeco Contemporary Art Initiative. Piraeus, Greece, © Mika Rottenberg. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.