Naama Tsabar

Israeli

1982

Installation and performance artist Naama Tsabar’s ongoing sculpture series Work on Felt defies the traditional place of felt in instruments as a silencer and transforms it into the instrument itself. As Tsabar describes how form, touch, and sound empower these works, watch a performance composed by local musicians Dylan Edrich and Jenna Flohr that brings the felt sculptures to life in SFMOMA’s galleries.

Credits:

This interview was filmed on the occasion of Naama Tsabar: Work on Felt (Variation 2) and (Variation 11) Black, a performance presented in partnership with KADIST.

Interview by Lindsay Albert & Jo-ey Tang

Produced by KADIST, Bearfish Productions, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Audio Stories

Finding language in sound

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transcripts

NAAMA TSABAR:

Well, I think sound is a really violent tool. It’s one thing that is hard to block, where with visuals we can just close our eyes. It was very important for me to kind of look back at my historical references. And so thinking of Beuys, I kind of stuck to these kind of more industrial colors. I think they work completely as sculptural forms. 

You know, they transition only when they’re activated. Felt is like fabric. It’s soft, it can’t hold any tension. It’s not rigid. And so in order for the material to have another characteristic, I had to embed carbon fiber into it. The fact that the carbon fiber is there gives it the ability to maintain a lot of tension. Once I put the piano string on, they take the shape. 

The sculpture kind of transitions into a place of an instrument. And for me the work is in the constant border between the two. You know, of course, these are not instruments that have any mastery to them. And so you kind of come to a playground where there’s no rules. And so it’s all about finding language. 

[Performance audio] 

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