Naama Tsabar: Transitions #3

Spinello Projects is pleased to present “Transitions #3″, a solo exhibition by New York-based artist Naama Tsabar, running concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach 2016. For her debut solo exhibition in Miami, Tsabar presents an installation comprised of three evolving bodies of work which examine human sociality and behaviour through the relation of body and space and the underlying role of intimacy and performativity.

Continuing her ongoing “Work On Felt” sculptures, Tsabar transfers these works from the floor to the wall with four new variations. These felt works, likened to Minimalist art historic works as Joseph Beuys’s felt sculptures or Robert Morris’s cut-felt wall pieces, subverts its expectations: the material is no longer the represser of sound, but the resonating chamber itself. The audience is invited to breach the borders between one’s own body and the artwork; plucking the string, extending or shortening the curvature of the work, emits a sound while provocating an intimate experience between the object and its catalyst.

“Transitions” is a series of canvases in which Tsabar has reconstructed guitar amplifiers and stage monitors by inverting them, reinserting and abstracting their elements as visual components on linen. Colored wires and knobs are threaded and punctured in and out of the fabric, creating new aesthetic compositions. When connected to power, each canvas retains its functional role with a set sound and volume levels. Within the exhibition, Tsabar will also present Barricade #3, a work composed by a set of sixteen microphones arranged in square formation, each side’s output fed directly through a “Transitions” work. Its microphone cables line the floor in formal composition, reflecting the path of transmitted sound. The spatial arrangement of the microphone stands act as both barrier and enabler as the performative space is compressed both physically and sonically. Performer and performance are contained inside the borders of the square. Upon activation, sound is transmitted out to the gallery walls, then projected back to the center of the space, filling the acoustic environment with resonant frequencies.

The fourth “Transitions” work will stay unconnected to any sound transmitting device. The dual existence of these sound sculptures is essential to their understanding, as the canvases constantly move from one field of reading to the other. They are visually surreal as they hold a potential for sound and continuously shift, maintaining a constant state of transition.