Jon Kessler was born in Yonkers, NY in 1957. He received a BFA from SUNY Purchase and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program. Since then he has exhibited widely in America, Europe and Asia. His recent exhibition at Deitch Projects, titled Global Village Idiot, in the spring of 2004 was his first New York exhibition in ten years. Unlike his earlier works that were mounted on the wall and were often read as animated paintings, his newer works are all floor pieces and in Kessler's words, "insist on their sculpturalness." They are mechanical events to be experienced, not just looked at. His use of surveillance cameras is a new development, reflecting a post 9/11 sensibility, modeling a dystopic reality where life is compromised by a feeling of anxiety, fragility and terror.