Michal Rovner

{{Infobox person

| name = Michal Rovner

| image = Michal Rovner.jpg

| alt = Michal Rovner, 1991

| caption = Michal Rovner, 1991

| native_name = מיכל רובנר

| native_name_lang = he

| other_names = Michal Rovner Hammer

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1957|11|07}}

| birth_place = Tel Aviv, Israel

| death_date =

| death_place =

| resting_place =

| nationality = Israeli

| education = Tel Aviv University,
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design

| alma_mater =

| known_for =

| awards =

Israel Prize (2023)

| website =

}}

Michal Rovner ({{langx|he|מיכל רובנר}}; born 1957),{{Cite web|url=https://museum.imj.org.il/artcenter/newsite/en/?artist=Rovner,%20Michal&list=R|title=Artists: Michal Rovner (Hammer)|website=Information Center for Israeli Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem|access-date=2020-03-10}} also known as Michal Rovner Hammer, is an Israeli contemporary artist, she is known for her video, photo, and cinema artwork. Rovner is internationally known with exhibitions at major museums, including the Louvre (2011) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (2002).{{Cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.com/1.5017031|title=In a Field of Her Own|date=2011-05-27|work=Haaretz|access-date=2020-03-10|language=en|quote=Michal Rovner is probably the best known Israeli artist in the world, a status set to be enhanced by 'Histories,' a colossal new exhibition at the Louvre.}} She is the recipient of the Israel Prize for the year 2023 in the field of plastic arts.{{Cite web |title=Michal Rovner on Israel prize website |url=https://israel-prize.education.gov.il/israel-prize-recipients/pras-israel-catalog/michal-rovner/#p_f9136b35-42c9-4cbf-980e-fd42579b4b97}}

Biography

Michal Rovner was born 1957 in Tel Aviv, Israel.{{Cite web|url=http://www.artnet.com/artists/michal-rovner/biography|title=Michal Rovner Biography|website=artnet.com|access-date=2020-03-10}} She studied Cinema/Television, and Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, and subsequently at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem in 1981, receiving a BFA degree in Photography and Art in 1985.

In 1978, with artist Arie Hammer, she co-founded the private art school Camera Obscura School of Art in Tel Aviv,{{Cite book|last1=Tumarkin Goodman|first1=Susan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9n1w2SWG5kkC|title=Dateline : Israel: New Photography and Video Art|last2=Grundberg|first2=Andy|last3=Perez|first3=Nissan|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2007|isbn=9780300111569|pages=8}} the city's first school for photographers. In 2005, the Camera Obscura School of Art closed due to financial reasons.{{Cite web|url=https://www.jpost.com/Israel/Tel-Aviv-arts-schools-battle-over-remains-of-Camera-Obscura|title=Tel Aviv arts schools battle over remains of Camera Obscura|last=Halkin|first=Talya|date=2005-10-05|website=The Jerusalem Post {{!}} JPost.com|access-date=2020-03-10}}

She moved to New York City in 1987.{{cite web|title = Collection Online, Michal Rovner|url = http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/3812|website = Guggenheim Museum|access-date = 2016-01-20|url-status = dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160304042738/http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/3812|archive-date = 2016-03-04}}{{cite web|url=http://www.bezalelfriends.org/artists/artists-rovner.html |url-status=dead |title=Michal Rovner |website=Friends of Bezalel |access-date=July 4, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100121044138/http://www.bezalelfriends.org/artists/artists-rovner.html |archive-date=January 21, 2010 }} Rovner was married to Arie Hammer.{{When|date=November 2020}}{{Cite web|url=https://asia.si.edu/collections/new/acquisitions-2018/one-person-game-against-nature/|title=New Acquisitions: 2018, One Person Game Against Nature I, #31|date=2018|website=National Museum of Asian Art|publisher=Smithsonian Institution|language=en-US|access-date=2020-03-10}}

Rovner splits her time between living on a moshav outside Jerusalem and living in NYC.{{Cite news|last=Moss|first=Hilary|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/t-magazine/artist-work-habits-camille-henrot-nina-chanel-abney.html|title=9 Artists on What Helps Them Get Their Work Done|date=2018-06-13|work=The New York Times|access-date=2020-03-10|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}

Art career

File:Chatsworth Gardens - geograph.org.uk - 597366.jpg

Rovner said about her work in 2016, "my work is not directly related to the Israeli-Palestinian question. I present situations of conflict, tensions, fractures.. vulnerability. (...) I always begin with reality. I record it and subsequently, little by little, I extract the image of reality, which becomes more fuzzy, losing its own definition, and bringing therefore something else."{{cite web|url=http://www.festival-automne.com/michal-rovner-show23.html|title=Michal Rovner, Fields / Fields of Fire | Festival d'Automne à Paris|website=Festival-automne.com|accessdate=2016-03-15}}

In the early 1990s, she worked with director Robert Frank on two films, One Hour-C’est Vrai (1990), an experimental film for French television, and Last Supper (1992), which she cowrote.{{cite web|url=http://www.aicf.org/artists/Michal-Rovner-A92/?did=4&action=list&url=%2Fartists%2Ffilm%2Fall-artists|title=Michal Rovner : : Art & Design Artist Bio : AICF|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130705033727/http://www.aicf.org/artists/Michal-Rovner-A92/?did=4&action=list&url=/artists/film/all-artists|archive-date=2013-07-05|accessdate=2013-09-05}}{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104687/combined|title=Last Supper (1992) : Overview|website=IMDb.com|accessdate=2016-03-15}}

In her early photography series Outside (1990–1991), "for two years [Rovner] photographed a Bedouin hut in the Israeli desert, then retouched each photo in order to create a spectral, shifting image of the modest structure isolated in an inhospitable setting."{{Cite book|last=Adler|first=Laura|title=The Trouble with Women Artists: Reframing the History of Art|publisher=Flammarion|year=2019|isbn=978-2-08-020370-0|location=Paris|pages=143}} For the Decoy series (1991), she distorted radar and surveillance images to create photographs of indistinct groups of people with blurred features. In One-Person Game Against Nature (1992–93), she again distorted images, this time her own photographs of people floating in the Dead Sea.

In 1996, Rovner began to use film and video, creating works featuring anonymous crowds of people or animals, as in Monoprints of Birds (1998). While she has eschewed direct political commentary in her work, in 1995–96 she produced installations for the Israel-Lebanon border that were situated on electric fences and guard towers in the line of ongoing exchanges of fire. These were complemented by her video Border (1996–97), in which she futilely attempted to demarcate and cross the border from Israel into Lebanon.

Her video Notes (2001) was a collaboration with the composer Philip Glass; Rovner used footage of a group of people walking on an inclined angle, and Glass composed music inspired by this moving image (their collaboration was documented in the 2003 documentary Looking Glass). Time Left (2002), a multichannel-video installation comprising images of endless rows of indistinct beings, was the centerpiece of her mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 2002. For the exhibition In Stone, at PaceWildenstein in New York City in 2004, she mixed sculpture and video by projecting minute images of crowds onto tablets of stone, blurring the line between image and text.

Rovner represented Israel at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and turned the Israeli pavilion into one of the most interesting one that year. Michael Rush writing on the work for Artnet said "....Rovner's media art is like no other. She stands alone in the pure and artful way she blends digital technology to suit her own vision. Her use of fine materials tools makes it look like the smoothest of marble or the supplest of paints..."{{cite web|url=http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/rush/rush7-9-03.asp|title=Magazine features - Vindicated at Venice|website=Artnet.com|accessdate=2016-03-15}}{{cite web|url=http://artintelligence.net/review/?p=233|title=Michal Rovner, Against Order? Against Disorder?, 2003 « artintelligence|website=Artintelligence.net|accessdate=2016-03-15}}

In the film Fields of Fire (2005), Rovner's images of oilfields in the Republic of Kazakhstan reflect the persistent instability of a region at the epicenter of international scrutiny. Living Landscape (2005), a site-specific video wall at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, projects a montage of pre-WWII footage of dances, music, and daily lives of European Jews.{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/rovner_transcript.shtml |url-status=dead |title=Transcript of the John Tusa Interview with Michal Rovner |website=BBC Radio 3 |access-date=July 4, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120616141030/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/rovner_transcript.shtml |archive-date=June 16, 2012 }}

Rovner's installation in the Louvre in 2011 was called "Histories". The Louvre chose Rovner for its Summer season outdoor display, next to the entrance Pyramid designed by architect I.M. Pei. Rovner's idea was to explore the themes of physical and psychological borders and of identity.{{cite web |url=http://www.france24.com/en/20110613-en-culture-Histories-at-the-Louvre-Michal-Rovner-sean-rose |url-status=dead |title='Histories' at the Louvre |website=France 24 |access-date=June 21, 2013 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130705033812/http://www.france24.com/en/20110613-en-culture-Histories-at-the-Louvre-Michal-Rovner-sean-rose |archive-date=July 5, 2013 }}{{cite web|url=http://www.louvre.fr/en/expositions/contemporary-art-michal-rovner |title=Contemporary art: Michal Rovner | Louvre Museum | Paris |website=Louvre.fr |accessdate=2016-03-15}} In winter 2012 Rovner presented "Topography" show in Pace Gallery, New York, continuing environment and science theme.{{cite web|last=Ruiz |first=Alma |url=http://brooklynrail.org/2012/12/artseen/michal-rovner-topography |title=Michal Rovner Topography |date=10 December 2012 |publisher=The Brooklyn Rail |accessdate=2016-03-15}} Her 2016 series Night takes a step back from some of these social questions and "explores the troubling presence of jackals around her house, a metaphor for the primitive and impenetrable that lies within each of us."

Her works are included in public museum collections around the world including those of; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA),{{Cite web|url=https://collections.lacma.org/node/153421|title=Michal Rovner {{!}} LACMA Collections|website=collections.lacma.org|access-date=2020-03-10}} San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA),{{Cite web|url=https://www.sfmoma.org/artist/Michal_Rovner/|title=Collection: Michal Rovner|website=sfmoma.org|language=en-US|access-date=2020-03-10}} Metropolitan Museum of Art,{{Cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search#!?q=Michal%20Rovner&perPage=20&sortBy=Relevance&offset=0&pageSize=0|title=Collection: Michal Rovner|date=2002|website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|access-date=2020-03-10}} Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (MCA Chicago),{{Cite web|url=https://mcachicago.org/About/Who-We-Are/Artists/Michal-Rovner|title=Michal Rovner|website=MCA|language=en|access-date=2020-03-10}} Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),{{Cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/86050|title=Michal Rovner. Outside. 1991 {{!}} MoMA|website=The Museum of Modern Art|language=en|access-date=2020-03-10}} Tel Aviv Museum of Art,{{cite web|url=http://www.pacemacgill.com/biography.php?artist=Michal%2520Rovner|title=Pace/MacGill Gallery {{!}} Artist Biography|website=Pacemacgill.com|accessdate=2016-03-05}} Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF),{{Cite web|url=https://art.famsf.org/michal-rovner/field-2-2001100|title=Field #2 - Michal Rovner|date=2015-05-13|website=FAMSF Search the Collections|language=en|access-date=2020-03-11}} North Carolina Museum of Art,{{Cite web|url=https://ncartmuseum.org/art/detail/tfila|title=Search collection: Tfila|website=ncartmuseum.org|access-date=2020-03-11}} and Whitney Museum of American Art,{{Cite web|url=https://whitney.org/collection/works/15988|title=Adama (Earth)|website=whitney.org|language=en|access-date=2020-03-11}} among others.

Selected exhibitions

Rovner's first solo exhibition was at Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv in 1987.

2016 - Night, Pace Gallery, 510 West 25th Street, New York, September 16–October 22, 2016.{{Cite news|url=https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/405/michal-rovner/documents|title=Pace Gallery - Michal Rovner - Documents|work=Pace Gallery|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2015 - Dislocations, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, September 18–November 29, 2015.{{Cite web|url=http://www.mamm-mdf.ru/en/exhibitions/mr/|title=Exhibitions: Dislocations (Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow)|website=Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2015 - Panorama, Pace London, 6 Burlington Gardens, April 29–June 15, 2015.{{Cite news|url=https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/12738/michal-rovner-panorama|title=Pace Gallery - "Panorama" - Michal Rovner|work=Pace Gallery|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2014 - Nofim, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, May 10–July 12, 2014.{{Cite news|url=http://shoshanawayne.com/news/opening-tomorrow-michal-rovner-nofim-may-10-july|title=%i — Shoshana Wayne Gallery|work=Shoshana Wayne Gallery|access-date=2018-03-23|language=en-US}}
2012 - Topography, Pace Gallery, 508 West 25th Street, New York, November 8–December 22, 2012.{{Cite news|url=https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/12546/topography|title=Pace Gallery - "Topography " - Michal Rovner|work=Pace Gallery|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2011 - Histoires, Musée du Louvre, Paris, May 19–October 24.{{Cite web|url=https://www.louvre.fr/en/expositions/contemporary-art-michal-rovner|title=Contemporary art: Michal Rovner {{!}} Louvre Museum {{!}} Paris|website=www.louvre.fr|language=en|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2011 - Making of Makom, L’Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris, May 18–29, 2011.{{Cite news|url=http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/10352/1/espace-culturel-louis-vuitton-making-of-makom|title=Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton - Making of Makom|last=Dazed|date=2011-05-18|work=Dazed|access-date=2018-03-23|language=en}}
2009 - Frequency, Ivorypress Art + Books Space, Madrid, October 8, 2009 – January 16, 2010.{{Cite news|url=http://www.ivorypress.com/en/art/michal-rovner-frequency/|title=Frequency - Ivorypress|work=Ivorypress|access-date=2018-03-23|language=en-US}}
2009 - Particles of Reality, DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, May 21–September 27, 2009.{{Cite news|url=https://dhc-art.org/michal-rovner-exhibition/|title=Michal Rovner - Exhibition - DHC/ART {{!}} EN|work=DHC/ART {{!}} EN|access-date=2018-03-23|language=en-US}}
2008 - Michal Rovner: Video, Sculpture, Installation, Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York, June 28–September 28.{{Cite web|url=http://www.heckscher.org/pages.php?which_page=exhibition_detail&which_exhibition=9|title=Art Exhibition at the Heckscher Museum of Art|website=www.heckscher.org|access-date=2018-03-23}}{{Cite news|last=Genocchio|first=Benjamin|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/10artsli.html|title=Works of Stone With Moving Images|date=2008-08-08|work=The New York Times|access-date=2020-03-10|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}
2008 - Adama, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, California, April 29–June 14, 2008.{{Cite news|url=https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/11634/michal-rovner-makom-ii|title=Pace Gallery - "Makom II" - Michal Rovner|work=Pace Gallery|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2007 - Michal Rovner, Galerie Haas & Fuchs, Berlin, November 3–December 28, 2007.{{Cite web|url=http://www.michaelfuchsgalerie.com/en/exhibitions/previous/action/show/controller/Exhibition/exhibition/207.html|title=Michael Fuchs Galerie|website=www.michaelfuchsgalerie.com|language=en|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2006 - Fields of Fire, PaceWildenstein, 534 West 25th Street, New York, February 16–March 18, 2006.{{Cite news|url=https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/11828/michal-rovner-fields-of-fire|title=Pace Gallery - "Fields of Fire" - Michal Rovner|work=Pace Gallery|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2005 - Fields, Jeu de Paume in collaboration with Festival d’Automne à Paris, Paris, October 3, 2005 – January 8, 2006. Traveled to: Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel, April 6–July 29, 2006.{{Cite web|url=http://www.jeudepaume.org/index.php?page=document&idArt=95&idDoc=91|title=Jeu de Paume|website=Le Jeu de Paume|language=fr|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2005 - Recent Works, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, March 15–April 9, 2005.{{Cite web|url=https://www.gowlangsfordgallery.co.nz/exhibitions/multimedia?id=7354&eid=7350|title=Exhibitions: Multimedia {{!}} Michal Rovner|date=2005|website=Gow Langsford Gallery|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180324041652/https://www.gowlangsfordgallery.co.nz/exhibitions/multimedia?id=7354&eid=7350|archive-date=2018-03-24|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2004 - in stone, PaceWildenstein, 534 West 25th Street, New York, April 30–June 5 (extended through July 16), 2004.{{Cite news|url=https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/11911/michal-rovner-in-stone|title=Pace Gallery - "in stone" - Michal Rovner|work=Pace Gallery|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2003 - Against Order? Against Disorder? 50th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Israeli Pavilion, Venice, June 15–November 2, 2003.{{Cite web|url=http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/rush/rush7-9-03.asp|title=artnet.com Magazine features - Vindicated at Venice|website=www.artnet.com|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2003 - Coexistence, Studio Stefania Miscetti, Rome, May 9–August 17, 2003.{{Cite web|url=http://www.studiostefaniamiscetti.com/exhibition_invitation.php?id=65&cat=1|title=studiostefaniamiscetti.com {{!}} Coexistence|last=www.dodek.it|first=Dodek -|website=www.studiostefaniamiscetti.com|access-date=2018-03-23}}
2002 - Michal Rovner: The Space Between, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City{{Cite news|last=Smith|first=Roberta|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/16/arts/art-review-technology-as-a-muse-a-hazard-and-an-ally.html|title=ART REVIEW; Technology as a Muse, A Hazard and an Ally|date=2002-08-16|work=The New York Times|access-date=2020-03-10|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}

References

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20160304042738/http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/3812 Guggenheim: Michal Rovner]
Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc3m5sRRnq0 MICHAL ROVNER - CURRENT / Ruhrtriennale 2012] interview by Ruhrtriennale on YouTube

Category:1957 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century Israeli women artists

Category:21st-century Israeli women artists

Category:Israeli photographers

Category:Israeli contemporary artists

Category:Tel Aviv University alumni

Category:Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design alumni

Category:Artists from Tel Aviv

Category:Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany