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until 02.04. | #0420ARTatBerlin | The gallery neugerriemschneider shows from the 05th of March 2016 the exhibiton “squares, sunsets in jerusalem and palette of colors” by the artist Noa Eshkol.
We are pleased to announce our second exhibition dedicated to the work of Noa Eshkol (1924-2007), on view at the gallery March 5 to April 2, which will comprise a selection of never-before-seen wall carpets created between
1973 and 1990.
While our first solo exhibition by Eshkol was largely dedicated to the artist’s representational motifs, this presentation will focus on her formally abstract works. With tapestries such as Squares (1980s), Palette of colors and Bars (both 1990s), Eshkol’s intensive and complex use of color emerges in clearly defined geometry. Even figuratively oriented works such as Sunset in Jerusalem (1976) portray an organically versatile nature within the framework of a formal order.
Born in 1924, Noa Eshkol was raised on a kibbutz in Palestine. In 1954, she founded the Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group, which was based out of her home in Holon, Israel, and shaped by both the practice of dance and a disciplined communal life. In addition to their daily exercises, the dancers lead a strictly ritualistic routine – many spent decades living and studying with Eshkol. In 1973, when one of her principal dancers was drafted into the military during the Yom Kippur War, Eshkol suspended her work in dance composition and began creating wall carpets from found fabrics. For her first textile works, she deconstructed clothing and combined the material with army blankets as well as cloth military targets. Eventually the artist and her dancers began procuring fabric from kibbutzim and clothing factories, which Eshkol pinned into arranged compositions that were then hand-stitched together by the group. So as to retain their readymade character, Eshkol specified that the originary fragments should not be cut. By her death in 2007, Eshkol had created a wide-reaching body of pictorial work, which remained in her home together with extensive writings, dance notations, and drawings.
Though Eshkol never made an explicit connection between the wall carpets and her work in dance composition, the seriality and symmetry of her textile works closely parallels the formalism and rigorous guidelines defined by her system of dance notation. Her interest in the laws of kinetics also becomes visible in the wall carpets’ graphic ornamentality and dynamic motifs, which can be perceived as isolated still images in a sequence of movements. In Hebrew, the word תקרה means both “carpet” and “story.” The narratives that ensue from this wordplay layer Eshkol’s wall carpets with autobiographical references as well as stories pertaining to the textiles’ origins and the history of Israel.
Noa Eshkol taught at the University of Illinois in Springfield (1968/69) and was part of the department of Fine and Performing Arts at Tel Aviv University (1972). It was there that she furthered the work of her Movement Notation Society, founded in 1968. In recent years, her work has been included in numerous international museum presentations such as those at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2011); LACMA, Los Angeles; Jewish Museum, New York; TBA21, Vienna (all 2012); Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris; Opelvillen, Rüsselsheim (both 2013), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2014). This year’s Sydney Biennale will feature a selection of wall carpets created between the 1970s and the early 2000s, on view for the first time in this specially selected constellation.
Vernissage: Friday, 04th March, 6:00 – 9:00 Uhr
Exhibition period: Saturday, 05th March to Saturday, 02nd April 2016
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Image caption & Video: via neugerriemschneider
Exhibition Noa Eshkol – neugerriemschneider – Kunst in Berlin ART at Berlin
