This is an excerpt of Naama Tsabar’s performance “Untitled (Double Face) at the art fair Frieze Los Angeles 2020.
“Drawing from her overlapping interests in sonic performance and the hybrid nature of musical instruments—as sculptural objects and conduits of sound—Naama Tsabar (b. 1982, Tel Aviv; lives in New York) tests the limits of audio in art spaces typically more welcoming to the visual. In her gallery-based works, Tsabar invites spectators to pluck and strum her hanging felt pieces and sculptures. She has also constructed percussive or amplified works that are embedded into freestanding walls or sculptural supports. The rock and roll guitar solo has long been associated as a performance of masculine bravado and mastery.
For Frieze Projects, Tsabar will present Untitled (Double Face), a performance with related photographs that coopts and upends the guitar solo through a conjoining and doubling. Using two guitars grafted together, Tsabar and a partner turn the seemingly masturbatory performative gesture into an act based on intimacy and cooperation.” (info text)
Naama Tsabar (b. 1982, Israel) received her MFA from Columbia University in 2010. Solo exhibitions and performances of Tsabar have been presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Art and Design, New York; The High Line Art, New York; Nasher Museum, Durham, NC; Kunsthuas Baselland, Switzerland; Palais De Tokyo, Paris; Prospect New Orleans; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; The Herziliya Museum for Contemporary Art in Israel; MARTE-C, El Salvador; CCA Tel Aviv, Israel; Faena Buenos Aires; Frieze Projects New York; Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York; Paramo Gallery, Guadalajara; Dvir Gallery, Israel; Spinello Projects, Miami.
Naama Tsabar: Untitled (Double Face), 2019. Performed by Naama Tsabar and Kristin Mueller, presented by Shulamit Nazarian at Frieze Los Angeles 2020. February 13, 2020.
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Complete video (19:37 min.):