Current Cross, 2014
Video Projection
Dimensions Variable
Broshei Laila, 2012
Black limestone and video projection
3'-3/8" x 11'-13/16" x 3"
Divided, 2014
LCD Screens, paper, and video
46 1/2" x 40 1/2" x 2 3/8"
(Divided, cropped at frame edges)
Yet another video installation with interesting setups (layered projections, projection on stone, paired flat screens). In my primary viewing, I thought about scale in the first, the second monumentality, and the third division. And, on this particular viewing day, I was also thinking about light, materials, and time in relation to Animal Charm (see here) and Anya Galaccio (see here) both of which I had viewed just before.
Despite making some thoughtful connections (light, time, scale, movement, surface), something kept me from, ultimately, liking the show, something in the aesthetic, I'm sure. Despite it's proposed levity, I also think it took itself too seriously, and therefore read a little too tight for my liking. When considering the artist's conceptual concerns in terms of time and place (she is from Tel Aviv and is now still a part-time resident of Israel), one can perhaps feel the agony of this work, particularly if one were to consider recent political events in the area not to mention a larger historical narrative of such division in place. So, then taking into account artist persona and intent, the work still seems conflicted between a global, big picture perspective, and smaller fragments. I prefer the latter, because not only does the image then become more abstract, but it also all encompassing in its inclusion of smaller, concrete elements thereby actually containing a whole in the smallest of divided details, again a fragment. While these issues (the formal/conceptual ones) are clearly not black and white but varying tones along a continuum, this much I can view and appreciate about Rovner's work. I still wonder where she stands on this spectrum, at least between dark and light.
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