Michal Rovner: in stone
PaceWildenstein, New York
April 30 - July 16, 2004
PaceWildenstein and Pace/MacGill Gallery present Michal Rovner: in stone, the artist's first exhibition since she joined the gallery last summer. The exhibition is on view at PaceWildenstein's Chelsea gallery. The exhibition of new video objects and installations incorporates the ancient and the modern by bringing together new media and archeological elements.
In her video work, al Michal Rovner uses human movement as gesture by presenting groups of anonymous figures reduced to their most emblematic and least individualized state. Using a compelling mixture of archaeology and science as contexts for her kinetic images, Michal Rovner's work conveys themes of historical documentation and record keeping as well as modern discovery and display. The video installation reveals underlying order within a seemingly chaotic, natural system. Rovner's work embodies universalities that are applicable across cultures and throughout history.
Michal Rovner (b. 1957, Israel) studied cinema, television, and philosophy at Tel-Aviv University and received a B.F.A. in photography and art at the Bezalel Academy. In 1978 she co-founded Tel Aviv's Camera Obscura Art School for studies in photography, video, cinema, and computer art. Ten years later, she moved to New York City.
The artist's prolific work in video and film, as well as on paper and canvas, has been the subject of over forty solo exhibitions including Michal Rovner: The Space Between, a 2002 mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and Against Order? Against Disorder?, an acclaimed exhibition featured at the Israeli Pavilion at the 50th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, 2003. In 1997, Pace/ MacGill Gallery presented Michal Rovner: Photographic Works.
Some of Michal Rovner's video installations include Overhang (2000), a site-specific installation at the Chase Manhattan Bank on Park Avenue in New York City; Overhanging (1999) at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Mutual Interest (1997) at the Tate Gallery, London, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and P.S.1, New York (1999). Her films have been screened internationally at several museums. Notes (2001), a collaboration with composer Philip Glass, was screened at the Lincoln Center Festival 2001, New York and the Barbican Theater, London. Rovner's film Border (1997) premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and received over a dozen subsequent screenings at major international venues including the Tate Gallery, London; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Michal Rovner's work is in several permanent collections worldwide including: The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
PACEWILDENSTEIN
534 West 25th Street, New York 10001
