I truly believe that a good exhibition is a path that starts from something inside the artwork, always surpassing its maker’s intentions, biography, identity, and the loads of words written and said on them.
O.D. – Hi Noam, first, I’d be happy if you could tell us a bit about yourself, and your focal point as a Curator, just a brief acknowledgement, how you approach an exhibition.
NOAM GAL – Hi, I am curator and academic, sort of living professionally on several terrains at the same time. But on both, as a curator and as a teacher and a researcher, I naturally situate my work in the presence of artworks and artists. For eight years I was the photography curator of the Israel Museum, which collection is, simply put, an unlimited heaven for every curator, surrounded by one of the most volatile social landscapes in the world. This gave me a deep sense of humility towards the kind of stories we pull out from artworks, whatever their period or material may be. I truly believe that a good exhibition is a path that starts from something inside the artwork, always surpassing its maker’s intentions, biography, identity, and the loads of words written and said on them.
…it made me smile, the thought of bringing together different creative lines, letting them intermingle, as sometimes happens with a poem and its translation – when it’s good, it’s hard to tell what comes to mind from words in the original and what from the host language.
O.D. – Then, more specifically, the Berlin water tower is a unique place, both in terms of architecture and space as well as regarding its previous function and historical background.
How were these things taken in when you planned the exhibition there?
NOAM GAL – There is often a risk, so I feel, when a very powerful and historically charged site is chosen for the display of contemporary art. When we entered the Wasserturm for the first time it was a cold and wet February morning outside, and inside a silent darkness from another era. I love the idea of bringing music to this dark and cumbersome space, musical instruments and human vocal chords have that ability to send away traumatic memories, right? they also have the power to ignite them anew… but I think it became clear at some point that this huge heavy cylinder of bricks and earth could itself resonate sounds that need minimum visual support, if at all.
Being with a poem is a sort of commitment, it needs time. But it shouldn’t be so stiff and stable either, we must play with what we know, with what we think right, and listen really carefully, even to the sound of our wrist when it moves.
O.D. – Then about poetry, words, language. You decided on presenting a selection of poems, all in two languages, how do you think or see the relation between the visual, physical presence of these objects and their meaning, the voices they speak out?
NOAM GAL – In the last year, it has been increasingly difficult for me, as for many people around me, to just hold on to one good thought, a single idea or image that would set me in peace and give me hope, even if only for a brief moment. Art does it for me, music, dance, poetry. Yael told me about the initial idea of organizing a music festival focused on duets, and it made me smile, the thought of bringing together different creative lines, letting them intermingle, as sometimes happens with a poem and its translation – when it’s good, it’s hard to tell what comes to mind from words in the original and what from the host language. So I thought, when people enter the Wasserturm, the stage is at the center, the pulse of music vibrates from there, but over the far skin that surround the stage and audience there will be small poems printed on lenticular postcards, where you see either the poem or its translation by tilting the card in your a hand a little, it’s not easy to catch one clear text, mostly you get the poem mixed with its translation and it’s not reading-friendly. Being with a poem is a sort of commitment, it needs time. But it shouldn’t be so stiff and stable either, we must play with what we know, with what we think right, and listen really carefully, even to the sound of our wrist when it moves.
