![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/IMG_5847.jpg\")
Toony Navok in her studio<\/p>\n Toony Navok in her studio<\/p>\n
Toony Navok\u2019s \u201cOrigins\u201d, her critically acclaimed debut solo show at Noga Gallery in Tel Aviv, re-arranged the space with a landscape of brightly coloured installations, alongside drawings and collaged prints. Her sculptural works were made of household products, DIY parts from hardware stores, as well as custom-made pipes or shelving systems and the occasional found object, all assembled to create curious constructions verging on the mystical. Cleaning products and shiny lacquered panels lent the works a distinctively manufactured glossy veneer \u2013 and an equally distinctive smell. Navok\u2019s probing of the characteristics of the industrially manufactured product, its potential as pure object, and rebirth in a conceptual artwork seeking to give shape to the sublime, resembles an alchemical process with strong links to Twentieth Century art history.<\/p>\n
Sleek met up with Navok at her studio in Tel Aviv shortly after she had dismantled the show \u2013 a stage she regards as the final performative aspect of the sculptural work \u2013 to talk about her view of objects and soft spot for\u2026sponges.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
You work in various mediums; do you have a preference for working in either two and three-dimensions?
<\/b>I\u2019m a sculptor, but I did go through phases with other mediums. Drawing is also a part of my work but I see it as a form of sculpting. What excites me the most is to move things around, deal with the body, and the relation of objects in the space to the body. I\u2019m interested in the closeness of representation to life and to everyday reality. You see my artistic \u201croots\u201d in this interest, as I started with design and performance originally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Performance is still an element of your work, though, isn\u2019t it?
<\/b>Yes, it still happens in the studio, with myself, but also while installing each piece in the show: it\u2019s a very constitutive moment, where things suddenly come together. My sculptural work is not classically done, where a sculpture is built in the studio and then sent off to a gallery as a finalised object. My action within it is very important.<\/p>\n
Yet the performance takes place without an audience or any documentation.
<\/b>Yes, though when I dismantled the show this time I filmed myself taking a wall-piece down. Watching it, I became aware of the importance of taking a work apart and how it relates to the show itself. As a sculptor I can\u2019t resist the need to touch and surround myself with tangible things. In the past I did some performances where I was physically present. I think I was making a statement, because I moved from graphic design to art making, and needed to make myself literally visible, as if saying, \u201cI\u2019m here\u201d. I did a lot of performances with objects and slowly but surely the objects entered my studio, until at some point I didn\u2019t need the performative presence any more.<\/p>\n
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![\"Toony](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/IMG_1218_s.jpg\")
Toony Navok in her studio<\/p>\n
Tell me about the objects you collect. What exactly are you looking for in objects?
<\/b>Oftentimes it\u2019s about form, I see a form and I detach it from its function. Sometimes it\u2019s guided by an emotional reaction to an object \u2013 I even identify with certain things.<\/p>\n
Do y<\/strong>ou mean a nostalgic sentiment an object can invoke or what kind of identification exactly? Your debut solo show at Noga Gallery was titled \u201cMekorot\u201d, which is Hebrew for Origins, but also Sources or Springs. What does the title refer to? Your own origins, coming from design are also visible in the work. In addition, Origins in regards to shapes also relates to a return to reduction that corresponded with certain moments and movements in art history. By the way, these are not things I think about when making my pieces. I generally don\u2019t think so much when I produce work. All these readings come later, and oftentimes from other people. There was a group of Zen design aficionados at the show who heard about it and came to see it. They gave the show a Zen interpretation. That pleased me, of course, because I see the sculptures as poems, as Haikus that summarise and extract, and they recognised that in my sculptures!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the reference to water \u2013 is that a further level of the show? How did you plan this plumbing actually? Would you say your sculptures have become more polished through working with craftsmen? It\u2019s different than using found objects only. You mentioned you identify with certain forms earlier \u2013 could you name an object whose form you identify with? Speaking of play, what\u2019s the fluid in the Temple sculpture?
<\/b>Also nostalgic, but mostly it\u2019s just the forms, I actually identify with certain forms. I collect these objects that reflect on me, and then the performance happens in the studio, when objects suddenly come together, when hierarchies are established between them. It happens very suddenly. And when I install a show I re-enact this moment. I always leave an element of uncertainty for the installation at the gallery though, so that things would just take their turn. Looking back at it I think it\u2019s a little crazy. What if it didn\u2019t happen? How would I have put together a show? But it did.<\/p>\n
<\/b>Mekorot is a versatile word, but in the show it\u2019s above all meant as Origins, and it refers to a return to pure form, to an abstract view of things as shapes. Why is an object made with a specific form? Why are things designed a certain way? Design in general is a key interest of mine. It\u2019s so critical and political as it actually shapes our everyday reality and I\u2019m asking, how is it that we consume objects that have been designed a certain way almost automatically. It\u2019s sometimes a historically established factor, like a certain colour being associated with hygiene for example.<\/p>\n
<\/b>It\u2019s a fascination I have. My works also oscillate between all-or-nothing: between substance and collapse. They\u2019re modular, and connect momentarily into a sculpture when assembled. The political in my work also relates to design and architecture: it is through design that we project what we want to be, our aspirations and desires, both individually and socially. So the individual decisions and visual choices that we make in our everyday, that\u2019s the political question I\u2019m raising.<\/p>\n![\"Toony](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Toony_navok_001-1024x682.jpg\")
Toony Navok, Origins (2013), Installation view, Noga gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Photo by Elad Sarig<\/p>\n
<\/b>Exactly. Mekorot is the name of the Israeli water company, so this only conjures up a certain reference to Israelis, but the show is based on the colour blue; like water, like surfaces with certain functions, and also there\u2019s this entangled piping and plumbing that doesn\u2019t connect to anything, it\u2019s just spiralling around itself. Water is a leitmotif in the show \u2013 and the discussion of the body in relation to water.<\/p>\n
<\/b>I often rely on craftsmen and manufacturers to produce custom-made objects for me. I order things that I\u2019m not sure are possible to make and, again, leave some room for chance. I approach it just like any other client ordering shelves or whatever; I don\u2019t tell them I\u2019m an artist at first. This is a critical moment, to understand who can take my complete lack of knowledge about the materials they specialise in, and work with it. My sculptures are so intuitive that I often don\u2019t understand where they came from. So I need to find craftsmen who are competent and patient, whom I can trust and who won\u2019t get annoyed at my strange requests.<\/p>\n
<\/b>I like showing a facade that\u2019s heroic, larger than life, and such facades are usually flattened, it\u2019s showy. Nearly perfect. Architecture tries to achieve that too. It\u2019s true that before, my work was more about creating the models for something. Small mentions as references to something else. Now, if I want to represent a parasol for example, I actually use a parasol. It excites me to use the real object that make up the world and that interact with our reality.<\/p>\n
<\/b>(Laughing) I think it\u2019s the sponges, mostly! They seduce me as objects. It\u2019s very funny to me that they exist, designed by someone, and are sold, and that people buy them, in all seriousness. There\u2019s something so childish about them, but adults buy them. Play is an important word for me.<\/p>\n
<\/b>Softener. It has a very distinctive smell, associated with cleanliness but actually quite chemical. The smell hits you before you see the sculpture. The colour of the softener also relates to the reductionism in the colour palette that recurs in the show, featuring light pink, milky yellow and baby blue \u2013 colours associated with hygiene and given to certain cleaning products. They\u2019re also very flat. The strangest thing was people\u2019s reactions to the containers of cleaning products. All I did was remove the labels, but people thought I manipulated the colours or shapes. These are objects we deal with everyday, and that everyone has at home. All I did was abstract their function.<\/p>\n