"WHEN someone asks 'What do you do? What's your work like?' it has always been super difficult," says Martin Kersels. "It was easier when I did performance, but it was always more than one sentence. And now, there's no way to describe it. Do you have any suggestions?" he inquires in a tone both sarcastic and sincere.

I interviewed Kersels a week after he returned from New York after performing at the Whitney Biennial 2010 an extension of "5 Songs," his multi-faceted piece, which consists of the sculptural installation of that title, and also a suite of multidisciplinary acts over the past few months by guest artists who were invited to climb on and use its five stage-like components. The performance Kersels gave was essentially a music act in which he collaborated with two others to deejay songs, play live and create collages on top of his sculptures.

"What I wanted to accomplish at the Whitney is to bring into question 'Is this a sculpture or is it a stage, or just what is it?' And I was trying to think of the body as an extension of the sculpture, rather than the sculpture just being a platform for the body. What I really hope is that there's this shift from 'what is this thing' to 'how or what does it mean?' And as it's employed, you may even forget that it's there because you're more involved in what is going on in front of you; the movement and the sound; the action. Afterwards, the performance offers options on how or what it might mean or how it is invigorated."

Of course that means that to experience the piece exactly how the artist intends, you wouldn't just visit the sculptures during the museum's day hours; you would attend a performance. Kersels really is, at heart, a performer above all else, and that infuses even his inanimate works of art. But he also doesn't like to be pigeonholed: "The hybrid encompasses so many personal histories. And I'm able to move between mediums and between situations."

Kersels has a fascinating history that makes me think of him as the quintessential LA artist. He attended UCLA's undergraduate and graduate art programs, worked there and at LACE and, since 1996, has co-directed the School of Art at CalArts. He describes the city's impact on artists in his typical brand of humor: "LA's a city that's got big migratory patterns; these sweeping areas where you have different experiences. There's this spirit of 'there are no boundaries.' Just as you can travel for the best potato tacos, you can be a painter and also make a feature-length film. There's this license to do that in Los Angeles."

Early on, Kersels wanted to attend UCLA's film school, but didn't get accepted. Luckily that didn't deter him. He had undergraduate teachers like Chris Burden and Mike Kelley, who inspired him to become a performance artist. Later, as a lab assistant to Burden and Paul McCarthy in the graduate sculpture and new media departments, and as a graduate student there himself, he realized that his interest in crossing disciplinary boundaries was just right for him. And that extends to his place at Cal Arts, as well, where that freedom to explore is embedded in the program.

Kersels' art over the last 30 years has evolved from one-person and collaborative performances to include a plethora of media: photographs, videos and sculptures, including kinetic ones that make noise and move. A retrospective two years ago included "Rickety," a huge sculptural installation that doubled as a stage for performances. ("5 Songs" follows Rickety in its literal and conceptual references to a stage.) Of all Kersels' recent work, it proved most difficult to describe —I remember, because I wrote about that exhibition for Artillery. It felt like uncharted territory to talk about it in terms beyond mere sculpture or as a functional piece of furniture or architecture, or even as an installation. That kind of challenge, though, I take as a good sign. And in that sense —because many of us see artists in biennials as cultural diplomats or ambassadors for whom we root because they're from our city —I think his work represents LA art at its hybrid-spirited best. ■