Ravit Mishli

Grill 

Kav 16 - Community Gallery for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv

Sep - Oct 2010 

 In the center of Ravit Mishli show stands a large scale sculpture, Grill, which will be placed at Neve Eliezer Community Center open sport field, Tel Aviv. Placing Grill in a public space was a conscious act; its immediate accessibility to the neighborhood residents enables to experience the work and to create a dialog between contemporary art and the broad public. Grill is a sort of slave/mercenary raft based on the model of a soccer table game. Twelve figures carried upon a raft can be moved through wheels located at the end of six iron rods. The figures are made of recycled boards, a material which provides them with primitive sculpture characteristics. These are universal figures standing beyond nationality and religion, lacking identity and personal features. The figures ability to move without limitation, enable them to bump and rub in to each other, intensifying the violent potential hidden in the work, arousing connotations of a battlefield, a gladiator's arena and arcade games.  Grill's location in the center of an open sport field, having on his back the covered gymnasium – a monumental pseudo "neo-classical" building resembling a Greek classic temple, emphasizes his connection to the past, to the historic, to the remains. Grill's physical presence can be conceived as a theatrical setting placed within a wider setting, a sort of enclave imprisoned in another. Mishli's work enlarges the conversation to sociological aspects and universal behavior relating to field games, putting up to discussion aspects such as "the flock phenomenon", populism, rituality and ceremonialism, adoration and subjugation.

Curator: Sally Haftel Naveh