Dvir Gallery Presents NAAMA TSABAR: LAYERS AND FORMATIONS Exhibition Review — Artwork as Instrument

Dvir Gallery’s NAAMA TSABAR’S LAYERS AND FORMATIONS Invites Viewers To Interact With Art as Musical Instruments

There is no separation of the installations in the gallery, and nearly every piece in the exhibition has the potential to transmit sound. Viewers are free to "play" the strings on each piece as they like. Her Works on Felt is an ongoing series that began in 2012. Originally inspired by the purplish hues of nocturnal New York, these newer works are suggestive of the desert landscape of the Israeli-born artist’s childhood. Work on Felt Overlap Diptych #1 copper and sandstone in particular, with its deep sand and terracotta tones, feels almost hot to the touch.

The Gaffer series takes gaffer tape, a tool designed to mask and stabilize performance equipment, and layers it to create the illusion of an expensive, almost organic material. The gallerist explains that Tsabar is interested in exposing the hidden labor of an object we tend to encounter in a limited manner. Moving the tape from the stage floor to the gallery wall, it is thick, obvious, and leathery, filling its frame with a sweaty sheen.

In a side room, we find Tsabar's New Yorker series, which was made during a confinement period in 2020. The artist reimagines three New Yorker magazines, chipping small incisions out of their covers to reveal choice words from the interior pages: words like floodwaters, liquid, and darkness. In this writer’s opinion, this series, much smaller in scale than the works in the adjoining rooms, has an intimate quality that neatly underlines the abstract themes of origin and home that are explored throughout the rest of the exhibition.

WHEN:

Thru May 6, 2023
Tuesday - Saturday from 12PM - 7PM

WHERE:

Dvir Gallery
13 rue des Arquebusiers
75003 Paris

TICKETS:

For more information, please visit the Dvir Gallery website.

Photos: Elisheva Gavra and Aurelien Mole