Michal Rovner Explained

Michal Rovner
Native Name:מיכל רובנר
Native Name Lang:he
Other Names:Michal Rovner Hammer
Birth Date:7 November 1957
Birth Place:Tel Aviv, Israel
Nationality:Israeli
Education:Tel Aviv University,
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design

Michal Rovner (Hebrew: מיכל רובנר; born 1957),[1] also known as Michal Rovner Hammer, is an Israeli contemporary artist, she is known for her video, photo, and cinema artwork. Rovner is internationally known with exhibitions at major museums, including the Louvre (2011) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (2002).[2]

Biography

Michal Rovner was born 1957 in Tel Aviv, Israel.[3] She studied Cinema/Television, and Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, and subsequently at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem in 1981, receiving a BFA degree in Photography and Art in 1985.

In 1978, with artist Arie Hammer, she co-founded the private art school Camera Obscura School of Art in Tel Aviv,[4] the city's first school for photographers. In 2005, the Camera Obscura School of Art closed due to financial reasons.[5]

She moved to New York City in 1987.[6] [7] Rovner was married to Arie Hammer.[8]

Rovner splits her time between living on a moshav outside Jerusalem and living in NYC.[9]

Art career

Rovner said about her work in 2016, "my work is not directly related to the Israeli-Palestinian question. I present situations of conflict, tensions, fractures.. vulnerability. (...) I always begin with reality. I record it and subsequently, little by little, I extract the image of reality, which becomes more fuzzy, losing its own definition, and bringing therefore something else."[10]

In the early 1990s, she worked with director Robert Frank on two films, One Hour-C’est Vrai (1990), an experimental film for French television, and Last Supper (1992), which she cowrote.[11] [12]

In her early photography series Outside (1990–1991), "for two years [Rovner] photographed a Bedouin hut in the Israeli desert, then retouched each photo in order to create a spectral, shifting image of the modest structure isolated in an inhospitable setting."[13] For the Decoy series (1991), she distorted radar and surveillance images to create photographs of indistinct groups of people with blurred features. In One-Person Game Against Nature (1992–93), she again distorted images, this time her own photographs of people floating in the Dead Sea.

In 1996, Rovner began to use film and video, creating works featuring anonymous crowds of people or animals, as in Monoprints of Birds (1998). While she has eschewed direct political commentary in her work, in 1995–96 she produced installations for the Israel-Lebanon border that were situated on electric fences and guard towers in the line of ongoing exchanges of fire. These were complemented by her video Border (1996–97), in which she futilely attempted to demarcate and cross the border from Israel into Lebanon.

Her video Notes (2001) was a collaboration with the composer Philip Glass; Rovner used footage of a group of people walking on an inclined angle, and Glass composed music inspired by this moving image (their collaboration was documented in the 2003 documentary Looking Glass). Time Left (2002), a multichannel-video installation comprising images of endless rows of indistinct beings, was the centerpiece of her mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 2002. For the exhibition In Stone, at PaceWildenstein in New York City in 2004, she mixed sculpture and video by projecting minute images of crowds onto tablets of stone, blurring the line between image and text.

Rovner represented Israel at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and turned the Israeli pavilion into one of the most interesting one that year. Michael Rush writing on the work for Artnet said "....Rovner's media art is like no other. She stands alone in the pure and artful way she blends digital technology to suit her own vision. Her use of fine materials tools makes it look like the smoothest of marble or the supplest of paints..."[14] [15]

In the film Fields of Fire (2005), Rovner's images of oilfields in the Republic of Kazakhstan reflect the persistent instability of a region at the epicenter of international scrutiny. Living Landscape (2005), a site-specific video wall at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, projects a montage of pre-WWII footage of dances, music, and daily lives of European Jews.[16]

Rovner's installation in the Louvre in 2011 was called "Histories". The Louvre chose Rovner for its Summer season outdoor display, next to the entrance Pyramid designed by architect I.M. Pei. Rovner's idea was to explore the themes of physical and psychological borders and of identity.[17] [18] In winter 2012 Rovner presented "Topography" show in Pace Gallery, New York, continuing environment and science theme.[19] Her 2016 series Night takes a step back from some of these social questions and "explores the troubling presence of jackals around her house, a metaphor for the primitive and impenetrable that lies within each of us."

Her works are included in public museum collections around the world including those of; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA),[20] San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA),[21] Metropolitan Museum of Art,[22] Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (MCA Chicago),[23] Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),[24] Tel Aviv Museum of Art,[25] Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF),[26] North Carolina Museum of Art,[27] and Whitney Museum of American Art,[28] among others.

Selected exhibitions

Rovner's first solo exhibition was at Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv in 1987.

Further reading

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Artists: Michal Rovner (Hammer). Information Center for Israeli Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 2020-03-10.
  2. News: In a Field of Her Own. 2011-05-27. Haaretz. 2020-03-10. en. Michal Rovner is probably the best known Israeli artist in the world, a status set to be enhanced by 'Histories,' a colossal new exhibition at the Louvre..
  3. Web site: Michal Rovner Biography. artnet.com. 2020-03-10.
  4. Book: Tumarkin Goodman. Susan. Dateline : Israel: New Photography and Video Art. Grundberg. Andy. Perez. Nissan. Yale University Press. 2007. 9780300111569. 8.
  5. Web site: Tel Aviv arts schools battle over remains of Camera Obscura. Halkin. Talya. 2005-10-05. The Jerusalem Post JPost.com. 2020-03-10.
  6. Web site: Collection Online, Michal Rovner. Guggenheim Museum. 2016-01-20. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304042738/http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/3812. 2016-03-04.
  7. Web site: Michal Rovner . dead . Friends of Bezalel . July 4, 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100121044138/http://www.bezalelfriends.org/artists/artists-rovner.html . January 21, 2010 .
  8. Web site: New Acquisitions: 2018, One Person Game Against Nature I, #31. 2018. National Museum of Asian Art. Smithsonian Institution. en-US. 2020-03-10.
  9. News: Moss. Hilary. 9 Artists on What Helps Them Get Their Work Done. 2018-06-13. The New York Times. 2020-03-10. en-US. 0362-4331.
  10. Web site: Michal Rovner, Fields / Fields of Fire | Festival d'Automne à Paris. Festival-automne.com. 2016-03-15.
  11. Web site: Michal Rovner : : Art & Design Artist Bio : AICF. dead. https://archive.today/20130705033727/http://www.aicf.org/artists/Michal-Rovner-A92/?did=4&action=list&url=/artists/film/all-artists. 2013-07-05. 2013-09-05.
  12. Web site: Last Supper (1992) : Overview. IMDb.com. 2016-03-15.
  13. Book: Adler, Laura. The Trouble with Women Artists: Reframing the History of Art. Flammarion. 2019. 978-2-08-020370-0. Paris. 143.
  14. Web site: Magazine features - Vindicated at Venice. Artnet.com. 2016-03-15.
  15. Web site: Michal Rovner, Against Order? Against Disorder?, 2003 « artintelligence. Artintelligence.net. 2016-03-15.
  16. Web site: Transcript of the John Tusa Interview with Michal Rovner . dead . BBC Radio 3 . July 4, 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120616141030/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/rovner_transcript.shtml . June 16, 2012 .
  17. Web site: 'Histories' at the Louvre . dead . France 24 . June 21, 2013 . https://archive.today/20130705033812/http://www.france24.com/en/20110613-en-culture-Histories-at-the-Louvre-Michal-Rovner-sean-rose . July 5, 2013 .
  18. Web site: Contemporary art: Michal Rovner | Louvre Museum | Paris . Louvre.fr . 2016-03-15.
  19. Web site: Ruiz . Alma . Michal Rovner Topography . 10 December 2012 . The Brooklyn Rail . 2016-03-15.
  20. Web site: Michal Rovner LACMA Collections. collections.lacma.org. 2020-03-10.
  21. Web site: Collection: Michal Rovner. sfmoma.org. en-US. 2020-03-10.
  22. Web site: Collection: Michal Rovner. 2002. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2020-03-10.
  23. Web site: Michal Rovner. MCA. en. 2020-03-10.
  24. Web site: Michal Rovner. Outside. 1991 MoMA. The Museum of Modern Art. en. 2020-03-10.
  25. Web site: Pace/MacGill Gallery Artist Biography. Pacemacgill.com. 2016-03-05.
  26. Web site: Field #2 - Michal Rovner. 2015-05-13. FAMSF Search the Collections. en. 2020-03-11.
  27. Web site: Search collection: Tfila. ncartmuseum.org. 2020-03-11.
  28. Web site: Adama (Earth). whitney.org. en. 2020-03-11.
  29. News: Pace Gallery - Michal Rovner - Documents. Pace Gallery. 2018-03-23.
  30. Web site: Exhibitions: Dislocations (Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow). Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow. 2018-03-23.
  31. News: Pace Gallery - "Panorama" - Michal Rovner. Pace Gallery. 2018-03-23.
  32. News: %i — Shoshana Wayne Gallery. Shoshana Wayne Gallery. 2018-03-23. en-US.
  33. News: Pace Gallery - "Topography " - Michal Rovner. Pace Gallery. 2018-03-23.
  34. Web site: Contemporary art: Michal Rovner Louvre Museum Paris. www.louvre.fr. en. 2018-03-23.
  35. News: Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton - Making of Makom. Dazed. 2011-05-18. Dazed. 2018-03-23. en.
  36. News: Frequency - Ivorypress. Ivorypress. 2018-03-23. en-US.
  37. News: Michal Rovner - Exhibition - DHC/ART EN. DHC/ART EN. 2018-03-23. en-US.
  38. Web site: Art Exhibition at the Heckscher Museum of Art. www.heckscher.org. 2018-03-23.
  39. News: Genocchio. Benjamin. Works of Stone With Moving Images. 2008-08-08. The New York Times. 2020-03-10. en-US. 0362-4331.
  40. News: Pace Gallery - "Makom II" - Michal Rovner. Pace Gallery. 2018-03-23.
  41. Web site: Michael Fuchs Galerie. www.michaelfuchsgalerie.com. en. 2018-03-23.
  42. News: Pace Gallery - "Fields of Fire" - Michal Rovner. Pace Gallery. 2018-03-23.
  43. Web site: Jeu de Paume. Le Jeu de Paume. fr. 2018-03-23.
  44. Web site: Exhibitions: Multimedia Michal Rovner. 2005. Gow Langsford Gallery. https://web.archive.org/web/20180324041652/https://www.gowlangsfordgallery.co.nz/exhibitions/multimedia?id=7354&eid=7350. 2018-03-24. 2018-03-23.
  45. News: Pace Gallery - "in stone" - Michal Rovner. Pace Gallery. 2018-03-23.
  46. Web site: artnet.com Magazine features - Vindicated at Venice. www.artnet.com. 2018-03-23.
  47. Web site: studiostefaniamiscetti.com Coexistence. www.dodek.it. Dodek -. www.studiostefaniamiscetti.com. 2018-03-23.
  48. News: Smith. Roberta. ART REVIEW; Technology as a Muse, A Hazard and an Ally. 2002-08-16. The New York Times. 2020-03-10. en-US. 0362-4331.

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