Work On Felt (Variation 2) and (Variation 11) Black

2018 - Sculpture (Sculpture)

83.82 x 92.08 x 312.42 cm, 205.1 x 166.7 x 54 cm

Naama Tsabar

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Naama Tsabar’s sculptural works are developed serially. The series Work on Felt references the history of post-minimal sculpture: from Robert Morris to Joseph Beuys’s social sculptures. However one can equally relate her work to 1970s conceptual performers such as Terry Fox or Paul Kos. The ongoing series Work on Felt began in 2012, and comprises around 20 pieces so far. Varying the material’s placement on the floor or wall, the work takes on different sizes, colors, cuts, bended shapes and length, as well as the number of strings whereby the length of the string determines the pitch of this experimental instrument. The idea of combining a flat surface with a string wired to an amplifier to create sound initially originated in paper form in 2012. Since then, Tsabar has worked with carbon fiber combined with epoxy, which is the material that lends soft materials, like felt, tension and rigidity. The material subverts expectations: no longer the dampener of sound (reminiscent of Beuys’s use of felt), but the resonating chamber itself. As the instruments are played, the body determines the texture of sound as much as a tuning peg or string. Work on Felt (Variation 2) is a floor piece that defies the place of felt in instruments as a silencer and becomes the chamber itself. A nod to Robert Morris’s post-Minimalist gravity felt sculptures, the black felt with one string is positioned in such a way that it occupies an ambivalent position between wall and floor, almost by chance, forcing the visitor or performer to crouch when trying to play the instrument. Work on Felt (Variation 11) Black from 2018 is a wall-piece that offers two strings adjacent to an oblique cut, reminiscent of Lucio Fontana’s cut paintings. Tsabar however offers a productive reversal of the cut, as an opening that allows a double relationship: one where two strings and two sides of the cut interplay, another where the resulting bending of the felt through the tension of the string plays out like a rejection of the flatness of paintings.

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Naama Tsabar is an Israel-born, New York-based sculpture artist. Examining the conditions of musical performances in galleries and museums as well as in public space, her work comprises installations and performances which address structures of power and modes of empowerment. She has a distinct approach to the deconstruction and appropriation of materials and instruments with a strong focus on the guitar as the iconic instrument of rock musicians. Tsabar’s work is influenced by her experience as a member of a punk band herself, using sound as a means of addressing various issues of the performance of music and its associated industry, from implicit gender roles to the social and economic mechanisms of the milieu. Her sculptures reference the traditions of contemporary art history as well as the tradition of live musical performances, often demonstrated by an amplifier linked to sculptures. In other cases, her deconstruction of musical instruments involves one or multiple performers inside a sculptural set. Her participatory works include either an implicit invitation to the gallery visitor to play the instrument, or involve musicians as guest performers, turning the gallery into a live performative setting. When inviting performers to her sets, she is conscious about giving space to women and gender nonconforming musicians.

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Colors:

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• music.n.01
• performance.n.01
• feminism.n.01
• ergonomic.a.01
• materiality.n.02