noa eshkol - textile traces

The sixth solo exhibition of Noa Eshkol’s work at neugerriemschneider, textile traces, staged in commemoration of her centennial, centers the narrative qualities of the visual artist and choreographer’s practice. A wide selection of her wall carpets, many of which are shown for the first time, form a veritable storyboard of the journeys that often served as their inspirations. Acting as tiered stores of memory, fueled by the power of her found materials, the works become a chronicle of discovery that unfolds across our Christinenstrasse space’s three rooms, hinting at a trio of theatrical acts and, in turn, the structural rigor that underlies Eshkol’s varied pursuits.

Eshkol’s textile tableaux are, at their cores, tributes to their materials. While the predetermined forms of the offcuts, rags, scraps and panels that comprise them tease their once-intended use, they function within the wall carpets entirely independently of their prior utility. Rather than accepting or being limited by their prescribed roles, Eshkol instead brought an openness to her media, encountering them with new eyes each time. By assuming nothing, seeing these fragmented components as tools, she afforded herself a profound understanding of how they, in their present states, were to become sumptuous images. This approach, unburdened by preconceptions, enabled Eshkol to mold her workpieces into rich stories.

Vividly illustrated, the evocative scenes reflect a revelatory inclination to close observation that characterized both her fine-art and dance practices, and provide a forum for the diverse facets of her persona to enter dialog. While kept decidedly separate by Eshkol, these dual vocations inevitably came to share conceptual groundwork. Sets of guidelines and strict adherence to them stood at the forefront of each, giving rise to highly methodical series of systems - ones that concerned themselves with cataloging and deploying repetition to capture ephemeral moments. 

The suite of wall carpets presented showcases Eshkol’s world in a succession of expressive scenarios, a group of which is presented free-hanging to reveal the works’ utilitarian construction, traveling through dense depictions of forested wilds and abstracted interpretations of choreographic formations, before venturing into portrayals of natural phenomena and the cosmos. In Geulas Tree (1990s), elongated strips of brown become a tree’s trunk and branches. Reaching upward, the limbs sprout tufts of autumn-toned foliage, while leaves in blues, greens and off-whites line their lengths. Strips of dark fabric, printed in florals and punctuated with ornamental bands, frame the tree, creating a boundary that in a single motion defines pictorial space and allows it to be transgressed. Nature gives way to orchestration in Halo Light (1980s), which sees layered sequences of repeated forms circle the work’s core, mimicking a chain of twirling dancers viewed from above. Swaths of silk appear luminescent, catching surrounding light and releasing it, lending the wall carpet an ethereal glow. This same radiance ascends above the terrestrial plane, extending to the sky and beyond in Planet (1998). A radial arrangement of patterned swatches emanates from the work’s middle, rippling outward and evoking a ringed celestial body. Four-pointed stars glinting in white are applied to the arrangement’s surface, imparting a depth to Eshkol’s spacescape and exemplifying the artist’s endless capacity for deftly crafting a distinct sense of place.

The artwork of Noa Eshkol (b. 1924, Degania Bet, Mandatory Palestine; d. 2007, Holon, Israel) has been the subject of international solo and group exhibitions at Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin (2024); Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Norrköping (2022); Oslo Kunstforening, Oslo (2021); Casa do Povo, São Paulo (2021); 34th Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo (2021); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2019); CFHILL Art Space, Stockholm (2019); Vleeshal, Middelburg (2017); 20th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney (2016); Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo (2014); Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Opelvillen Rüsselsheim, Rüsselsheim (2013); TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (2012); The Jewish Museum, New York (2012); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2012); The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2011); Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2011); The Open Museum, Tefen Industrial Park, Kfar Vradim (2010); Hamumche Gallery, Tel Aviv (1998); Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod (1996); Danish Museum of Decorative Art, Copenhagen (1980); and Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (1978).

This year, KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the Georg Kolbe Museum reissued Noa Eshkol and Avraham Wachman’s landmark 1958 publication “Movement Notation” for the first time since its initial release.