Michal Rovner

Gow Langsford Gallery are please to present the first solo exhibition in New Zealand by Israeli artist Michal Rovner. Rovner’s work has been exhibited extensively internationally, including her 2002 mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the highly acclaimed exhibition at the Israeli Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. These exhibitions have firmly established Rovner as one of the most important contemporary artists working today.

Born in Israel in 1957, Rovner studied photography and art at the Tel-Aviv University and went on to establish Tel-Aviv’s Camera Obsura Art School, specialising in photography, video, cinema and computer art. Rovner’s atmospheric and haunting works blur the boundaries of cinema and photography, often playing on the chance happenings that occur when working with these mediums.

Based in New York City since 1988, Rovner still focuses on concerns surrounding the border crossings between Israeli and Palestinian territories. Ghostly and anonymous figures act out the issues of aggression and reconciliation that occur in these circumstances, hint to the sense of loss and survival that is apparent war zones. However, Rovner’s work typically removes itself from holding any overtly political stances, posing questions rather than answering them.

This exhibition encompasses a selection of Rovner’s prolific work in video, as well as on paper and canvas. DVD projections illuminate graphite slabs and petri-dishes, posing as alternate landscapes for her migrating subjects to move across.

Rovner's work is in several permanent collections worldwide including: the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Museo d'arte contemporanea Roma; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Tel Aviv Museum, Israel, among others.

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Michal Rovner