The art that Naama Tsabar creates is both striking and approachable. This artist-in-residence from New York City has two such works in To Hold a Form, the current exhibition at the Lilley Museum of Art at the University of Nevada, Reno.
One of her pieces, “Work on Felt,” is just that: a large piece of felt, with carbon fiber giving it the malleability to become its own large instrument when Tsabar uses a single piano string to contort its shape. The piece makes sounds when bowed or hit. And it’s OK if you pluck on the massive string; Tsabar said she encourages that.
Her second piece, “Melody of Certain Damage,” features guitars she’s smashed and broken. She screwed the pieces in place on a large board that is flat on the gallery floor, and restrung them with piano wire in varied shapes that make sounds when struck or bowed.
“I feel like the broken guitar is where a musical instrument can reflect contemporary music, rock ’n’ roll, where the history of music is left on the floor after a violent act,” Tsabar said. “My motivation is to put new elements into place and use piezo microphones to reinvent them as working instruments. It’s a landscape of debris, and it changes the relationship of how you act with your body when playing these.”
Tsabar took the re-creation of these instruments one step further for two October performances at the Lilley. She spent a week composing and then performing new music with two musicians from the university—biochemistry and music major Sophie Duvall, and philosophy master’s graduate Karlie Watson—and three other musicians: Ruby Barrientos, Jonesy and Sarah Strauss.
Tsabar described the performance as ranging “between more minimal music to things that are almost classical-feeling, and parts that are more structured like pop or rock. It was quite a vast sonic landscape to find and perform in. And, because I work with local musicians, they basically write with time. It’s a complete collaboration.
“In our performance, there were real moments of fragility and intimacy between us and the instruments, and I think there is something radical in that, to share that with an audience.”
Stephanie Gibson, executive director and chief curator at the Lilley, was particularly struck by those live performances.
“The entire museum was its own concert hall,” Gibson said. “People were strumming on the paintings and trying to make a tune. They were working so hard to use the drumsticks and bows. It was so melodic, so beautiful. It really took your breath away. I’ll never forget that experience. I love how it pushes against conventions.”
That tug-of-war with what constitutes gallery art was a big motivator for Gibson to choose Tsabar and the other two artists in the exhibition, LaRissa Rogers and Jennie C. Jones. She said it changes, in some ways, how people move through the space and even what the function of a museum exhibit represents.
“It’s the spoke of a metaphorical wheel, where we bring a lot of different discussions around performance, around feminist art production, and what stories they can share,” Gibson said.
Jones, also from New York City, uses electrical wires from headphones and soundproofing sheets used in recording studios, among other elements of her minimalist art.
“She’s working with the remains of music production, and I find that fascinating,” Gibson said.
The foam used in Jones’ sculptures “absorbs sounds, voices and odors, and it’s set to a musical score that she remixed that’s also in the gallery,” Gibson said. “So over time, her sculptures take on the life and the times of the galleries themselves. It looks very austere and unemotional, but it really has a lifetime of stories and narrative and emotion.”
Rogers is from Charlottesville, Va. Among the elements she uses in her work are unplugged microphones.
“I see it as a form of resistance,” Gibson said of the implied silence. “We’re not fully privy to this narrative. I thought it communicated how silence can be as effective and as strong as sound, and who gets to hear the narrative.”
Rogers uses a variety of different media—repurposed porcelain, actual sugar-plant skins, video displays—to create these powerful works that bring history to present-day discussions.
“I’m interested in the ability of a symbol or an object to be removed from its violent history, and then to be reinstated through a place of belonging, so it’s actually reparative,” Rogers said.
Possibly the most striking work Rogers built for the exhibition includes images and video of the Jesse White Tumblers, an African-American acrobatic group based in Chicago. That media is set into a large sculptural installation that also has two small trampolines right in front of it.
“I was thinking about the act of jumping, the up and the down, the groundedness and then the flight or weightlessness, only to hit the ground again,” Rogers said. “I saw it as repetition as a practice of hope, and in a time that can feel hopeless.”
Said Gibson: “It’s really hard to make museum art relevant to everybody. It’s been amazing to see people and especially musicians, whether they are in a garage band or a major in music at the university, recognizing what is being created. It’s so gratifying to see people automatically feeling a connection to these pieces.”
To Hold a Form is on display at the Lilley Museum of Art at the University of Nevada, Reno, through Saturday, Nov. 15. Admission is free. Gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Learn more at unr.edu/lilley.