 Masada's Mikve, 2008 Mikve denotes both a Jewish ritual of bathing and a bathhouse. Masada is the name of a Jewish fortress on the eponymous mountain in Israel overlooking the Dead Sea. It was built about 40 BC by King Herod and right up to today has played a great role in the history and mythology of Zionist ideology. In his installation, Osvaldo Romberg relocates the foundation walls of the original royal bathhouse by reconstructing them with layers of newspapers. With that, he takes up the ephemerality of the news, which dominates our everyday life and simultaneously demonstrates how, as a collection of wastepaper, it forms the walls of the archive enclosing the cultural space of humanity and transporting it through time. Osvaldo Romberg, * 1938 in Buenos Aires (RA), lives and works in New York and Philadelphia (USA)  Osvaldo Romberg, Masada's Mikve, 2008drawing, watercolor, 96 x 126 cm courtesy ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe Osvaldo Romberg Mikve at Masada, 2008 mixed media installation (stacked newspapers) courtesy Galerie Heike Curtze Wien-Berlin produced in Cooperation with ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
|