Michal Rovner’s (b. 1957, Israel) work in video, sculpture, drawing, sound and installation has been exhibited in over 60 solo exhibitions including a mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of Art, the Israeli Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the Jeu de Paume, and the Louvre. In 2006, Rovner began a series of monumental structures titled Makom (Place) using stones from dismantled or destroyed Israeli and Palestinian houses from Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Haifa, the Galilee, and the border of Israel and Syria. She worked with Israeli and Palestinian masons to construct new spaces encompassing history, memory, and time. In 2013, Rovner created the installation Traces of Life at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum devoted to the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Shoah. Rovner’s video installations have been exhibited at Tate Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, among other institutions worldwide.
Stazione Municipio, Naples
Video projection; pastel and water colour on plaster
3770 cm x 400 cm
Rovner's video fresco connects the past and the present and is a tribute to the great civilizations that were engaged with the place for thousands of years. It also creates an immediate association with Pompei. Working in the present context while at the same time respecting the values of the past, was essential to both architects and the artist. The surface of the wall references the ancient walls discovered during the excavations. By inserting multiple moving figures, the artist introduces the dimension of time in tune with the unstoppable flow of passengers that animates this important metro junction.