In Aki Sasamoto’s exhibition “Yield Point,” trash cans and dumpsters move along tracks. Contractor bags inflate by means of hidden electric fans and fuse with trampolines, as if to symbolize the importance of elasticity in life. Spotlights that turn on and off on a twenty-minute cycle introduce the sculptures as discrete actors posing on a soundstage. Sasamoto responds to these object-actors in a series of weekly performances that include appearances by saxophonist Matt Bauder and singer-songwriter Alsarah.
In the front gallery, two videos of a tensile testing machine, used to measure the strength of building materials, provide the exhibition with a soundtrack of steel and brass fracturing under pressure. Paired with the noise of metal pushed past its limit, the title of Warning (2017), an installation consisting of a row of pinned recycling bags stretching around the gallery, hints at a harrowing question: how far can we push ourselves, and the environment, before we reach the breaking point?
—Kate Moger
Pictured: View of Aki Sasamoto’s exhibition “Yield Point,” 2017, at The Kitchen. Photo Jason Mandella. Courtesy The Kitchen.