The exhibition “We Shall Overdraft” by Israeli artist Roy Menachem Markovichs comprises sculptures and short films that were conceived and filmed in the artist’s studio in a collapsing garage in a run-down neighbourhood of repair shops, clubs and artists’ studios in the south of Tel Aviv. The result is “Desktop Graves”, a series of small sculptures made from found materials and waste such as cardboard, old bread, pieces of plastic, broken glass, scraps of paper and pieces of metal. The precariously assembled objects are reminiscent of the models of heroic monuments and memorials that can be found everywhere in Israel, with its young and eventful history, in parks, on street corners and in squares.
The videos and short films by Roy Menachem Markovich also play with concealed illusion: uncanny things happen in small, slapstick-like sketches: bushes and stones move by ghostly hands, but obviously not with sophisticated digital video technology. Everything appears fragile, patched together and makeshift. The lovingly crafted model of a sushi bar shatters into a thousand pieces, a bland office becomes a jungle of plastic plants and cardboard stones.
In the video “Diamonds Forever”, staged in the style of an investigative fake documentary, the protagonist, the artist himself, finds glittering stones in his newly occupied studio. In search of happiness and wealth and fuelled by diamond fever, the artist finally destroys his studio in blind greed.
What is real, is it all illusion? The utopia proves to be a precarious backdrop, the imperfect and inadequate emerge. A feeling of sadness and incapability creeps in at the moment of comedy and absurdity.
The video trilogy “And We Worked’”examines the mechanisms of documenting and preserving the collective memory of the Holocaust.
Holocaust survivor Elisaveta, Roy’s grandmother, tries to tell her story from life in the small Slovakian village to the terrible events in the concentration camp in front of the camera. “And we worked …” deals with human behaviour in the face of a topic that cannot actually be dealt with and is, despite everything and above all, a humorous video that reveals human inadequacy, shakes up universal taboos, stirs and moves.
“We Shall Overdraft” is Roy Menachem Markovich’s first comprehensive solo exhibition outside of Israel. On Tuesday, 2 October, he will talk to art historian and author Katarina Holländer about his current exhibition at message salon.