Wild Exaggeration

Uri Radovan

The grotesque element in Uri Radovan‘s animation pieces presents itself mercilessly. Using the low-tech technique of stop-motion based on quick drawings on paper cutouts combined with manipulated readymades, Radovan constructs short, at times unintelligible and absurd, episodes. Their surreal plots - fantasies of cruel violence, sex, drugs and death - undermine politically correct moral codes and cultural norms; allegedly, all is permitted here - killing Bambi (Hunter, 2007), seducing Barbie and coaxing her into an overdose (Coke, 2007), or descriptions of an inebriated liver's journey down the corridors of an alcohol-drenched body (Mr. Liver, 2007). These "abject" themes reflect in a world awash with blood and trashiness - as in the basic technique with which Radovan animates the protagonists of his films - breaking conventions of execution as well as of content. The figures' motion and his deliberate jump cuts are read as self-consciously anarchist acts, the perfect antithesis to children's animation films. Radovan undermines even the superficial appearance of story moral or of hope. It seems as though there is no way out of the cruel world that is accumulated through these works - that is, besides a sharp self-humor; the kind of humor that already contains a confession of unbridled, violent and racist urges, simultaneously ridiculing the ability of art production to present itself as a subversive act.

Born in Jerusalem, 1971; lives and works in Tel Aviv