Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch
22 September - 22 November, 2014
A solo show at Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch in Rome.
For her first solo show in Rome, Cnaani will present a room-size installation constructed by several Do-It-Yourself projection machines and movie-makers she recently developed.
The title of the exhibition is taken from Beckett’s short dramatic monologue, written for mouth only. The only-mouth protagonist offers a torrent of broken speech, an uncontrollable stream of words that walks the line between pain and pleasure, carnal and transcendental, self and no-body.
For the main installation, Cnaani employs a variety of mechanisms of image-making, inviting the viewer to step into a world of moving parts and shadow projections that is at the same time magical and mechanical. Unlike the cinematic experience, Cnaani’s sculptural configuration makes no attempt to hide its means of production. The equal attention to projector and image seeks to explore the tension between reality and illusion and the mechanisms of showing. Wandering around the gallery space between magnifying glasses, flickering lights, rotating machines and their projection, one gets the feeling, once described as “ seeing both the skeleton and the ghost”.
Looking at the elusive line between the real and its projection, the optical and the imaginary, the projected imagery continues Cnaani’s ongoing research that reflects on the notion of Ecstasy, the practice and idea of being or standing outside oneself. Bringing together collection of images and texts, from high and low culture, Cnaani gathers stories of historical individuals, groups, places and locations of risky sexual, spiritual, and artistic trips out-of-one’s body.
Documentation of In Other Words, performance at the opening of Not I, at GALLERIA MARIE-LAURE FLEISCH, rome from Ofri Cnaani on Vimeo.
video credit: apc production