Ohad Meromi

Site: Guardian Angel Settlement House, Thrift Store + The Luminary

Ohad Meromi’s ​Structure for Rest​ is an installation for daydreaming in which the audience is invited to collectively rest their heads and fantasize about a different world. Here, the notion of daydreaming takes from Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch and his book ​The Principle of Hope​. The daydreaming that Bloch favored suggested opening up to new horizons of collective experience, a vision of solidarity and fraternity.

Structure for Rest​ is based on the motion repertoire of workers. In our current reality sleep is not rest, but yet another charging dock, like that of the smartphone. It is managed by medications, eroded by flickering screens, and milked dry by the routine of a technological society. In past times, daydreaming may have been considered escapist, idle, and politically indifferent, but in the political economy that darkens around us, it has a key role in preserving the principle of hope. The installation is intended to have multiple lives, being installed in Guardian Angel Settlement House and Thrift Store during the run of ​Counterpublic​, and roving in its component parts within The Luminary in the following seasons.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ohad Meromi was born in 1967 in Kibbutz Mizra, Israel, and lives and works in New York. He graduated from Bezalel Academy of Art and went on to receive his MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts. He has exhibited at venues and events including The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Tel Aviv Museum of Art; The 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art; The Lyon Biennial, France; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Magasin 3, Stockholm; De Appel Museum, Amsterdam; Sculpture Center, New York; MoMa PS1, New York; and Art in General, New York. ​Structure for Rest​ was originally commissioned by MOBY for “The Kids Want Communism”