Naama Tsabar
September - October 2019

Born in Tel Aviv in 1982, Naama Tsabar earned a Bachelor of Education from Hamidrasha School of Arts, Beit-Berl, Israel, in 2004, and an MFA from Columbia University, New York, in 2010. In her sculptures, performances, and installations, Tsabar examines the behavioral codes and power structures embedded in the culture of popular music. Her hybrid artworks often function dually as sculptures and instruments. Made in muted colors using industrial materials like plywood, felt, and paper, these pieces bring to mind Post-Minimalist art of the 1970s. But, as Tsabar incorporates guitar strings, tuners, microphones, and speakers, abstract formalism gives way to the dynamism of live performance. To activate her installations, the artist works predominantly with women and gender nonconforming musicians. Making music that ranges from experimental noise to more conventional forms of songwriting, Tsabar and her collaborators engage the complex relationships between bodies, space, sexual difference, and identity as they infuse seemingly neutral objects with a distinctly feminist sensibility.