Ohad Meromi's Worker! Smoker! Actor! exhibition at Nathalie Karg gallery explores labor through sculpture and animation

Ohad Meromi's exhibition 'Worker! Smoker! Actor!' at Nathalie Karg gallery features a video centerpiece tracking a woman on a cigarette assembly line through Meromi's animation. The video incorporates intertitles from Vsevolod Meyerhold's 1969 book 'Meyerhold on Theater' that question boundaries between physical action and psychic experience, work and leisure. Meromi's sculptural practice demonstrates superb craftsmanship, with references to Giacometti's figures, game boards, and Constructivism, though his work avoids gimmicky recitations of Modernist tropes. The artist constructed a round handmade wooden wall that partitions the screening room from the rest of the gallery space at 41 Great Jones Street in New York City. The exhibition runs through August 15, 2014. Meromi's work maintains its own contexts and ideas with particular interest in labor and production processes. The artist previously worked in a studio building where neighbors appreciated his thoughtful and rigorous production methods. The tone of Meyerhold's intertitles in the video remains ambiguous—unclear whether presented skeptically or earnestly.