Continuing through July 12, 2014
Michal Rovner fills the gallery's cavernous main space with a stunning projection that expands from wall to ceiling. Rovner's subject matter has been and continues to be the people and landscape of Israel. In “Current,” numerous overlapping silhouetted figures walk as if around the Kaaba — the holy shrine of Islamic pilgrimage in Mecca — filling at first the shape of a rectangle that then divides in half only to re-form a whole as the video loops. Below this rectangular shape flows a line of black silhouettes.
Rovner's compositions usually juxtapose a progression of silhouettes against a barren landscape. This repetition of simple forms echoes the formal concerns of minimalism. However, their dynamism and the way they expand through time and space situates Rovner more as a conceptualist than a formalist. The figures cycle back and forth, moving at a snails pace, trapped in their endless journey. The works are metaphors of struggle in the way they present peaceful landscapes in the midst of conflict.
Published courtesy of ArtSceneCal ©2014
