Michal Rovner b. 1957

Born in Tel Aviv in 1957, Rovner studied cinema, television and philosophy at Tel Aviv University before pursuing her B.F.A. at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.  Moving to New York in 1987, her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in important venues around the world.  A mid-career survey at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art in 2002 was followed by her selection to represent Israel in the 2003 Venice Biennale. Rovner’s work is in many major museums including the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Recording staged or actual scenarios, Rovner alters her source material by breaking down resolution and adding expressionistic color.  The resulting images emerge from the real world but have lost their sense of specific moment and singular event.  Her universal concerns address spirituality, transcendence and change and, since 1996, have found expression in both video works and site specific installations along with her continuing interest in photography. The later works, such as this lot, are also informed by an interest in Eastern religions. Here, both spiritual and philosophical questions add an element of the epic to compositions where multiple, silhouetted figures occupy the frames.  This focus on the dynamics of the group presents the viewer with open-ended questions about the interactions between the individual figures which remain uncertain and unresolved.