BOLDTYPE ISSUE #42: Artwork By
The cover image for this issue of Boldtype is a detail of a video still from the Michal Rovner book Fields, which was published by Steidl in 2005 and is distributed in North America by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publications, Inc. The book, which was occasioned for an exhibition of the same name at the Jeu de Paume in Paris and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, forgoes the easy representation of installation views for a rhythmic exploration of Rovner's fluid compositions.
Here, minute figures create a composition that resembles barbed wire or a prisoner's notch-marked calendar. The eerie remove of individuality with occasional gestures of spread hands also calls to mind citizens rounded up en masse for militaristic action. Working with orchestrated photographs and video taken in Russia, Romania, and Israel, Rovner has employed this motif of miniature human bodies in decidedly dissimilar installations. Wallpaper-wrapped rooms, glowing
Petri dishes, ancient wells, and carved stone tablets have all served as locales for this god-like perspective on shrunken humans.
Born in Tel Aviv in 1957, Michal Rovner has made work that investigates conflict and borders, drawing on her homeland's climate without specifically political references. Rovner's work has been shown internationally, including at the Tate Gallery in London, at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and in the 2000 Whitney Biennial. She represented Israel in the 2003 Venice Biennale.
- Catherine Krudy
