Meira Grossinger’s works can be described as belonging to the genre of Neo-Dadaism. Through a combination of used and ‘second hand’ objects she creates portraits of bygone life. Some of her objects are meager and rejected, while others are culturally charged. In this show the fusion of the two has produced a collection of artifacts from completely different worlds, which transmits an atmosphere both of the world of The Other and the world of the homeless – a world of ‘non place.’

Grossinger is exhibiting a series of installations in a warehouse situated in the Jaffa port area which at the moment is undergoing renovations and is being developed as part of the new promenade which connects Jaffa with Tel-Aviv. The warehouse has been deserted and neglected in recent years, and Grossinger’s installations accentuate the feeling of this space as a ‘non-place’.

In her installation “Me, My Daughter, My doll”, 2009, the title of which is taken from one of Chaim Nachman Bialik’s poems (the Doll and her Perambulator), the artist, using a mass of tangled cords, has produced a feeling of childhood, or in her own words “a powerlessness against the destiny of mankind. “This installation is comprised of approximately 35 dolls heads, each of which has been attached to a wooden clothes hanger. Grossinger shatters the idyll of the sweet and delightful doll with two plaits, by showing her as a fragmented stuffed and damaged figure, made out of torn pieces of sponge . Her purpose is to reveal the amount of grief that lays hidden ‘in the fate of mankind as a whole, and in the fate of the Jewish people in particular.’ The dolls are displayed as if they were in a shop window, without bodies, with their heads resting on their necks, suspended by wires or in the artist’s words; “rows, which look like lines of soldiers, or condemned prisoners, or trees in an orchard.” The installation “Threads”, 2009, is constructed out of strings which fall downwards randomly, and create an environmental sculpture around them, a different kind of a floating grid. Among the abstract lines created from the strings, figurative elements are positioned and are floating or seem to be floating on the floor. There are three figures of children in an upright position, and three others in snail – like positions of repose. Shapes of amorphous forms give an impression of a chrysalis or a fetus. Some others look more like butterflies or bats which have become trapped between the threads. The installation “Cage”, 2009, is also made out of string netting and creates an environment which looks like a kind of shelter or even like a prison. The butterfly which emerges from the chrysalis is flying. But it is also imprisoned. There is something about these installations which produces a surrealistic atmosphere, which is intensified by the interconnection between the different elements which are in the process of annihilation and reproduction at the same time.

The final installation in the show is titled “Collective Memory”, 2009. It is a marionette which looks like a white ballerina, constructed of netting, cloth and lace, stuffed material and plaster. The ballerina’s neck is pushed backwards in a ballet pose. Her legs are cut off at the knees and she is suspended by a wire dangling from the ceiling. All around her are pieces of floating soft material which remind us of snow flakes. These are being blown out by the wind from a ventilator. On the wall, a still life photograph of a concentration camp is screened, with human figures which are being set free, marching on some kinds of boxes, which are a replacement for the knees they don’t have. ( Their legs were cut off by Nazi doctors for the purpose of medical experiments). They are dwarf-like and grotesque.

The artist has inserted a video clip in the photograph, of a man dressed in black, playing an organ-grinder. A small music box on which we see figures of ballerinas, has been placed on a tiny table in the corner. A sweet, sugary tune of a music box is heard in the background. The ballerina and the music box represent elements from Meira’s childhood, and from the childhood of her parents, who were very young during the Second World War. The black figure and the tune from the music box are repeated over and over again, reinforcing the feeling of sadness, pain and longing for what was and will never be again. Meira Grossinger’s work is an almost ongoing theatrical experience. The meeting between the viewer and the artistic artifact is a confrontation, a mutual trespass. The objects are created as if they were standing in the viewer’s way. It is he or she who finally completes them. The meeting binds the beholder’s body to the objects, producing a new strange entity. The beholder’s physical presence completes the work and to a certain extent even solves the unfinished riddle, which the objects pose.