Playing with My-Self
Works by Renana Neuman
March 16 – April 21, 2024
Opening Reception March 16, 2024, 6–8 PM
Transmitter is thrilled to present “Playing with My-Self,” a media installation by Brooklyn-based artist, Renana Neuman.
“Playing with My-Self” furthers Neuman’s examination into the ways bodies come together and collectivities are formed; shedding light on the way narratives of national becoming act upon the body and the multiple selves contained therein. Composed of sculptures, animation, video and sound, the installation centers on characters that are in a constant process of becoming. Central to Neuman’s exploration is her use of fragmented figures, broken and unsustainable as individuals. Appendages are aggregated and hybridized in different ways, coagulating into unique, almost geological, forms that upend the coherence of the self.
These figures appear in different arrangements throughout the space; as a line animation, revolving around a semi-sphere protruding out of the wall; a head; the world; a knob; a clitoris; acting as a sundial that winds and rewinds itself constantly, struggling to hold on. Further into the space, two projections are overlaid on themselves and activate a choir of sculptures that act as an inner voice of the multiplicity of selves within the subject.
The exhibition marks the culmination of 2-years of development and 5 years of ongoing research into museums in both Israel and the United States. Neuman, herself an Israeli citizen and immigrant to the U.S., explores the mercurial nature of identity. Subjecting the Israeli self and body politic to both scrutiny and experimentation serves as an entry point for her expansive effort to trouble the forces of nation writ large. Selfhood is thus revealed to be neither a static concept nor a wholly organic one, as the installation casts light on the natural elements, the landscapes, histories, and memories intrinsic to one’s ever-shifting being/becoming.
The two-channel video projection composed of footage shot at various museums and cave reserves in Israel, reveals how histories and memories are ensconced like etchings on the walls of a cave yet are occluded beneath the glow of nationalist projections. Threading the works of sculpture and video together is the motif of fire, which, for Neuman, ambiguously signifies both one’s own burning desire for personal wholeness, as well as a fervent nationalist passion. Rather than looking away from the flames, Neuman’s installation situates itself within a border-zone, between the self and the state, staging what might be considered a tragic disruption to the processes of molding and melding that the state seeks to perform upon its citizens and subjects.
Text by Michael Zalta
About the artist:
Renana Neuman is a Brooklyn-based visual artist, organizer, and educator born in Israel. Her installations utilize video, animation, projections, and sculpture, interacting with architecture and objects, conjuring spectres of possible pasts and futures. Her works invoke the ghosts of our cultures and invite them to haunt us, to tell us their stories, to play. Her work received support through residencies and awards including the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture; Artist Residency Grant; Artist Exhibition Grant; a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant; Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Residency; LABA: Laboratory for Jewish Culture; Ox-Bow Faculty Residency and Winter Intensive; and Vermont Studio Center. Her work has recently been shown at Ortega Y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn, The Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, NJ; Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz, Poland; 14th Street Y, NYC; Kunstraum LLC, Brooklyn; Barbur Gallery, Jerusalem, Israel; The Immigrant Artist Biennial, NYC; and the RVK Feminist Film Festival, Reykjavík, Iceland among other venues. Renana received a BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, and an MFA from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts.
This exhibition is organized by William Chan. This project was supported by an Artis Exhibition Grant and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.
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