Michal Rovner at the National Library of Spain
From March 24 to July 3, 2021 the National Library of Spain (Biblioteca Nacional de España) will host the artist’s book Document, created by the Israeli video and photo artist Michal Rovner for Ivorypress.
The book, published in an edition of three plus two artists proofs, comprises printed recycled paper, string and video projections, housed in a glass and metal vitrine. This artist’s book is inscribed within Rovner’s line of investigation, exploring themes such as time, memory and writings. Concepts and mediums are interwoven and synchronized on the delicate surfaces of her works, creating a meaningful visual narrative.
Document requires the reader to bring a contemplative and attentive perspective. It is only when the book is examined up close that Rovner’s characteristic typographic individuals in motion appear, only to disappear, indiscernible from a distance. These ‘typographies’ are captured in an eternal, processional loop of movements, repeated with meticulous hypnotic flux.
Rovner’s fascination with time is present in Document through various temporal dimensions: the use of recycled paper, the printing process, the kinetic masses projected on paper. The repeated human movement seems as if history is written and rewritten in an infinite cycle. Between art and archaeology, the book offers us an enigmatic testament seemingly written in a language that has yet to be deciphered. Rovner doesn’t circumscribe her work to any pre-ascribed message, instead she allows the subtext to speak for itself.
This exhibition is part of a multi-institutional exhibitions program that will take place in museums and libraries across Europe and the United States during 2021 on the occasion of Ivorypress’s twenty-fifth anniversary. Each exhibition engages with the medium of the artist’s book by placing it in dialogue with the collection of the host institution and venue, seeking to highlight the artist’s book as an artistic medium alongside other media such as drawing, painting, and sculpture.