Meira Grossinger’s exhibit at the “Artists’ House” in Tel-Aviv (curator: Ada Naamani), includes two installations that are connected to each other. In the front space, “TheStage”, there are two groups of figures that seem like marionettes entangled in a mesh of strings extended above them like a cloud. These are linen strings maintaining the smell of sheep-wool that is filling the space. The marionettes are loosely fastened to the ground while their limbs move in the breeze generated by the fans placed in the space. They seem like responding with a slow dance to the sounds of water, winds and human songs echoing through the space.

The second space, “The Storeroom”, is over-crowded by a heap of human figures in various sizes, along with “shells” of fragmented bodies. The strings that operated the figures lie on the ground like an abandoned tangle. A figure that holds the strings is placed somewhat higher than the others. It is unclear whether it pulls the strings or being pulled by them.

The figures are made of chicken-wire netting, newspapers and remnants of clothing. The wire netting stabilizes the inner structure, while the newspapers build the “flesh”, and the clothes hint at life’s functionality. The figures are left exposed at various stages of creation and of disintegration. The layers of newspaper, become life’s raw material, flesh of the flesh of the contemporary human being, fleeting data providing but a doubtful illusion of control. Grossinger raises questions like: who is pulling the strings and who breathes life into matter. The question of human destiny and his freedom of choice.

 What is the role of the creative artist or that of the spectator experiencing the activation of the artwork.