The viewers participate actively in the creation of an intimate world, characterized by a yearning (though not a nostalgic) to faraway, perhaps even imaginary cultures. The leading character – a wolf-bird-witch hybrid – brings to mind a ritual-shamanic culture with its use of repetitive visual and aural elements.
MAY 2002 Colotis Phisadia
A nature movie depicting the development of a butterfly is projected on a passive body, referring to the way video represents creative processes, as well as poetically expressing life’s cycles. At the same time – again using the body as a passive tool – snails crawl over Mendelovici’s body, invoking associations of eroticism, beauty and repulsion.
July 2002 Mom, 1999
An autobiographical video from 1999 serves as the starting point for questions of memory, time and blood relation. The dance is a means for observing relationships and emotions, while body gestures signify the gap between dependence on and dissociation from fixed patterns. The dance in the first part of the performance mimics Karin’s dance with her mother in the video, while in the second part it is based on memory.
April 2003 Karin Mendelovici and Hila Navok Souvenir
The Souvenir project consisted of a two-day, 13-stop walking route in Tel Aviv, with different stops on each day. The artists collected souvenirs at each stop, played classical music, took their own pictures, etc. Their actions expressed a preoccupation with momentary experience and an immediate connection to the city. Their last stop on the evening of the second day was Performance Art Platform, where they two created a park-like environment – a resting-stop within a closed space, in the context of an established, institutionalized performance art environment.
September 2004 Head or Tails (Stage)
This work is part of a series of performances focusing on the body’s presence, its reaction to structural and spatial environments, and its interaction with the audience. Mendelovici’s actions and movements are informed by everyday life, rituals, sports and games. They include both improvised and planned elements, and operate in an environment that is charged and intense, but at the same time also pleasing and playful. While striving for liberation and unique expressiveness, Mendelovici’s work also conveys the awareness that no one can move in ways that are completely original and individually unique.
February 2005 Photographer (Video, 04:32, 2003)
The work is based on raw materials collected in October 2002, during a performance that took place in the restrooms of Performance Art Platform. Anybody who entered the restrooms was photographed with a Polaroid. The pictures were then hung on the restroom walls. The work highlights the connection between the performance – a brief, fleeing moment – and the photography – a product which fixes and ‘kills’, but at the same time continues to revive a moment that has seemingly passed. The portrait of the (female) photographer originated in a synthesis of cultural clichés, such as the photographer, the security guard, the host, the exhibitionist and the pervert.
