For the duration of his exhibition, Ohad Meromi will use Art in General’s sixth floor galleries as a combined theatrical stage, architectural installation, and site for performance. This project is Meromi’s first opportunity to combine performance and sculpture in a work that has the capacity to evolve over a period of several months: essentially, Art in General will become the primary space for his studio practice. Drawing on modernist architecture, Israeli Kibbutzim, the plays of Bertolt Brecht, and Constructivist set design as influences, Meromi will create a series of sculptural environments that are continually altered through off-hours “rehearsals” that will take place in the gallery.

Rather than leading to an ultimate event, this project will use the “rehearsal” as its preferred mode of engagement: creating a stage yet avoiding the notion of a specific finished product. The project is open-ended in nature, revolving around ideas of transformation and potentially accumulation as the physical form of the work is altered through the actions of rehearsal participants, as well as by those of the artist. The spectator is invited to explore the inanimate set, or participate in one of the rehearsals by means of various protocols that the artist devises. As the artist states: “there are fragments, bits of texts and protocols which will inform a program of workshops, but these protocols do not exist as one organizing script or stageplay. The spatial and material structures of the work are summoning a social possibility, and this social possibility in return will generate the content of this sculpture, complete it.”

About the Artist Born in Israel, Ohad Meromi currently lives and works in New York City. Meromi graduated from Bezalel Academy (1992) and went on to receive his MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts (2003). He has exhibited internationally and nationally at venues including The Israel Museum, Tel Aviv; Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel; 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art; Lyon Biennial, France; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Magasin 3, Stockholm; De Appel Museum, Amsterdam; Sculpture Center, New York; and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York. Meromi has received numerous scholarships and awards including a Percent for Art commission (2009), the Fund for Video and Experimental film (2004), I.C. Excellence Foundation (2003), Nathan Gottesdiener Foundation Israeli Art Prize (1998). He was recently granted the Foundation for Contemporary Arts 2008 Grants to Artists Award.

Support The New Commissions Program is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services; Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Jerome Foundation; The Pollock-Krasner Foundation; Agnes Gund; and the Greenwall Foundation. Support has also been provided by Commissioners Circle leaders Toby Devan Lewis and Cher Lewis, and Commissioners Circle members Pamela Averick, Louise Phillips Forbes, Sean Johnson, Mary Lapides, Joyce Siegel, and Jeremy Steinke.

Additional support for Ohad Meromi’s project is made possible by Artis – Contemporary Israeli Art Fund and the Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel in NY.