MICHAL ROVNER'S RECONSTRUCTED RUBBLE AT THE LOUVRE

Israeli artist Michal Rovner has transformed the courtyard of the Museé du Louvre into a chilling tableau of Mideast ruin for her “Histoires” exhibition, May 18-Aug. 15, 2011. Along with a group of masons, Rovner collected stones from demolished homes in Israel and Palestine and rebuilt them at the museum into two square structures, weighing upwards of 70 tons. The structures, surprisingly symmetrical despite their rough-hewn and irregular building blocks, are each bisected by a narrow gap that lets in light and offers a view inside.

In keeping with her long fascination with civilization and its remains, Rovner has projected two “frescoes in motion” onto the museum’s original, cracked stone walls. Elsewhere, she has displayed small stone and light sculptures.

Meanwhile, an exhibition that goes behind the scenes of the creation of the structures, called “Making of Makom” (the Hebrew word for “space”), is on view at the Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton through May 29, 2011.

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