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Alona Rodeh

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Alona Rodeh
אלונה רודה
Born1979
Ben Ami, Israel
NationalityIsraeli
EducationBezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
Known forVisual art
Websitealonarodeh.com

Alona Rodeh (born 1979) is a visual artist. Her work spans a variety of media including sculpture, video, immersive installations using light and sound, photography, and publishing. She is represented by Christine König Galerie (Vienna) and Rosenfeld Gallery (Tel Aviv). She currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany, and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Biography

Rodeh received her BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem in 2003, and participated in the BFA exchange program of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. She completed her MFA at the Tel Aviv campus of Bezalel in 2009, spending a semester at the Sculpture Department of the Royal College of Art, London, taking part in their MFA exchange program.

Rodeh's works have been exhibited at international institutions including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; CCA Tel Aviv; Kunstpalais Erlangen, Germany; Salzburger Kunstverein, Austria; and Plug In ICA in Winnipeg, Canada, among others. She has been invited to perform at Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland; the Swiss Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Italy; and the Transmediale Festival in Berlin.

Work

Rodeh’s artworks react to cultural phenomena by engaging and appropriating their visual and practical manifestations in the public sphere[1]. Expanding on sculpture, and applying her experience as a set designer for television and theater, Rodeh creates her own brand of large-scale, often room-spanning installations. She combines light, movement, and sound, sometimes adding a touch of humor, in a manner related to the genre of performance without performers, a technique typically applied in experimental theater. The audience plays an active role in many of Rodeh's projects, albeit sometimes unawares.

Individual sculptural elements in Rodeh's installations are outfitted with programmable enhancements to produce immersive environments in which sequences of light and darkness, as well as sound and silence, deliver time-based experiences[2].

Rodeh also creates short films, with or without live actors. While the techniques she uses are contemporary and the content is coherent with her three-dimensional installations, the films do not include audible dialogues, somehow resembling the era of the silent film. Sound effects are extensively used, though.

Rodeh collaborates with musicians and sound artists to produce unique aural components that are integral to her pieces. In the ongoing collaboration with sound artist Rachid Moro, the interplay of techno-spatial elements has become central to her research and work.

The Safe and Sound meta-project (2013–ongoing)

Fueled by Rodeh's interest in the materials that shape our visual and sonic urban environment, the ongoing Safe and Sound project[3] explores the histories of reflective, phosphorus, and illumination technologies embedded in road works, emergency procedures, airport runways lighting, as well as commercial and mobility illumination.

Rodeh focuses on nighttime city landscapes for investigating light as a cultural and physical entity. Off-the-shelf technology plays an important role in her research into the material and visual cultures of safety. Her work often explores the coded signifiers of safety and their surprising affiliations with clubbing, fashion, theater, and architecture[4].

Works and exhibitions in this project include, among others:

  • Safe & Sound 1+2 (2013): In this immersive sound-and-light installation, the upper floor of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin had been transformed to create a glow-in-the-dark homage to the ballrooms of Roaring Twenties Berlin. Highlighting the architectural manifestations of safety regulations, escape routes, and reflective technology embedded in architecture, this room-spanning artwork was sequenced on an original track by DJ Rødhåd.
  • Safe & Sound Evolutions (2014): Works in this solo exhibition looked at the links between strobe lights and sirens, and their use in clubbing and popular culture, in addition to safety protocols. A limited-edition poster series was also developed and offered at the Grimmuseum in Berlin[5].
  • High Visibility (2016-17): This wall-mounted series, presented at the abc art berlin fair (2016) and miart, Milan (2017), cataloged high-visibility workwear and the visual language of safety coded into urban settings.
  • Dark Ages 2020 (2019): Staged at the Salzburger Kunstverein, in Salzburg, Austria, this solo exhibition consisted of an immersive installation occupying the institution's entire main hall. Sculptural hybrids of architectural columns and traffic-stopping road bollards were awash with fast-changing sequences of light, darkness, and sound[6].
  • Architecture of the Nights (2019): In this solo exhibition, several rooms on the basement level of the Kunstpalais in Erlangen featured different projections, sculptures, and light elements combined with sound effects. The various artworks and elements were programmed to activate a synchronized Gesamtkunstwerk in a performance without performers.[7].

Residency with the Berlin Fire Department (September 2016–ongoing)

Rodeh began a year-long residency at the Berlin Fire Department in 2016, taking 24-hour shifts at the Wedding-district station and visiting many of the city's 35 fire stations, including the Berlin Fire Brigade and Rescue Service Academy (BAFRA) in Reinickendorf. Special attention was given to firefighter training, daily routines, and fire-control operations. Although the residency has officially ended, Rodeh still joins the night shift on New Year's Eve every year.

The residency was organized by the Zentrum fur Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK/U) as part of the Artist Dis-Placement program, and was funded by the Artecitya EU project, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, the Berlin Fire Department and the Department of Culture and Europe of the Senate of Berlin.

Rodeh produced several works during the residency, including the short film To the Moon and Back[8], and is planning a public sculpture at the Friedrichshain Fire Station, among others.

Public Art (selection)

  • On the Road (Unterwegs), Kunst am Bau project supported by the Büro für Kunst im öffentlichen Raum BBK, at the Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Gymnasium in Berlin, Lichtenberg (2018)[9]
  • The Curves of Jaffa, a public commission by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, Division of Culture and Arts (2017)[10]
  • The Farewell Kiss Of Fire From Water, a temporary public commission by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, Division of Culture and Arts (2016). [11]
  • The Gatekeeper (Torwächter 1200), a public sculpture for the entrance of the Friedrichshain Fire Station, the Berlin Fire Brigade (upcoming in 2020).

Publications

Acting as a publisher/editor, Rodeh strategically commissions essays and editorials to provide a broader context to her projects. These are presented as standalone publications and are often treated as an extension of an artwork or exhibition, or as a limited edition in and of themselves.

  • Safe and Sound: The Third Dimension (2019)[12]: The publication explores architectural illumination and the connection between commerce and nighttime leisure. The commissioned essays investigate the psychology of wartime blackouts as well as lighting technologies in discotheques, both marking light and darkness as modes of emancipation. A visual essay by Rodeh traces the morphology of urban bollards from the 17th to the 21st century.
  • FIRE: Safe & Sound (2018)[13]: Commissioned and published during Rodeh's residency with the Berlin Fire Department, this publication includes four new essays by professionals who tackle the subject from different perspectives. The epilog is a photo-essay compiled from the archives of the Berlin Fire Department showing documentation of the unexpected phenomenon of self-caused accidents with Berlin fire engines.
  • Safe and Sound: The Delux Edition (2015)[14]: This publication follows the rise of various audiovisual methods of safety and security, and their adaptations into popular and subcultural aesthetics, from the beginnings of Modernism to the present. Essays trace the history of high-visibility clothing, fire safety standards in architecture, and the phenomenon of acoustic alarms as seen from neurological, sociological, and cultural perspectives.

Solo Exhibitions

  • Architecture Of The Nights, Kunstpalais, Erlangen, 2019
  • DARK AGES 2020, Salzburger Kunstverein, 2019
  • I Wear My Sunglasses At Night, Bivy, Anchorage, 2017
  • The Runner (LIVE), Koenig2 by Robby Greif, Vienna, 2017
  • Safe and Sound (Evolutions), Rosenfeld Gallery Tel Aviv, 2015
  • Safe and Sound (Evolutions), Grimmuseum Berlin, 2015
  • Safe and Sound I, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 2014
  • Neither Day Nor Night, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, Tel Aviv Museum, 2013
  • Above and Beyond, CCA Tel Aviv, 2013
  • Resurrection of Dead Masters, ARCH2 (Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba) + Plug In ICA, Winnipeg, 2012
  • Barking Dogs Dont Bite, The Arts Department, Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, 2012
  • The Etheric Body, Collection Gallery Petach Tikva Museum of Art, 2011
  • Fire, Work!, Kav 16 Community Gallery for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, 2010

References

  1. ^ Perlson, Hili. "How Artist Alona Rodeh Reveals the Tyranny of Safety". Frieze, 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  2. ^ "Alona Rodeh – The Runner (Live)". KubaParis, 2016. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  3. ^ Kirshner, Sarai. "Walking through the work of Alona Rodeh". AQNB, 2016. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  4. ^ Perlson, Hili (2015-09-30). "Alona Rodeh's Safe and Sound Review". artnet news, 2015. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  5. ^ Finel Honigman, Ana. "Alona Rodeh solo at the Grimmuseum". ARTFORUM, 2015. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  6. ^ Nachrichten, Salzburger. "Aus Pollern wird alarmierende Lichtkunst". www.sn.at (in German). Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  7. ^ Robert, Henri. "Alona Rodeh: Light – Tool of Control or Counter-Cultural Symbol?". Happening, 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  8. ^ Rodeh, Alona. "To the Moon and Back (full preview file)". On YouTube, 2017. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  9. ^ On the Road (unterwegs), by Alona Rodeh, Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Gymnasium
  10. ^ Werner, Anna-Lena. "Interview: Alona Rodeh". Artfridge, 2018; includes a reference to the Curves of Jaffa project. Retrieved 20 July 2019. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  11. ^ "The Farewell Kiss Of Fire From Water". Time Out Tel Aviv, 2016 – a farewell gesture to Tel Aviv Dizengoff Square, a local landmark, which was torn down just ten days after the artwork was created – on Facebook. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  12. ^ Deiss, Amely; Kröger, Malte (eds.) (2019). Safe and Sound: The Third Dimension: A journey from past reality to future ideology. Kunstpalais Erlangen. ISBN 978-3-923899-51-7. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
  13. ^ Rodeh, Alona (ed.) (2017). FIRE. Safe and Sound Essays. ZK/U Press. ISBN 978-3-945659-07-6. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
  14. ^ Rodeh, Alona (ed.) (2015). Safe and Sound Delux Edition. The Green Box. ISBN 978-3-941644-79-3. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)

Bibliography

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