Ariel Schlesinger is an Israeli artist I first got to know as ariel.chico through his often brilliant contributions to the MinorUrbanDisasters-pool on Flickr. Turns out he’s doing fine arts and is also currently exhibiting at Klerkx gallery in Milan – you should definitely check it out if you happen to be around.

There’s a low-tech bricolage installation, created from a wooden ladder, a transformer and an electric drill. From the top of this “Bubble Machine”, small soap bubbles filled with cooking gas are rhythmically released only to explode into flames (video) on the electric grill below.

Then there’s a quote in Hebrew on the wall, “What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by”, from J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, which was was applied using Schlesinger’s second exhibited installation, the “Grafitti Printer”. It uses punch cards to control five spray-cans (video) and looks a bit like the steampunk-version of the pixel roller.

On exhibition through 3rd of March. More images.