The mahJ presents the first exhibition in France dedicated to the Israeli artist Noa Eshkol (Degania, 1924 – Holon, 2007). A pioneer of modern dance and a choreographer, she was also a prodigious textile artist. The exhibition highlights her work from the 1950s to the 2000s, ranging from her choreographic compositions to her famous Wall Carpets, through drawings, photographs, and videos.
Dancer, choreographer, and artist Noa Eshkol occupies a central place in the history of modern dance in Israel. Known for her system of movement notation, she founded the Chamber Dance Group in 1951. Her choreographies, structured as rigorous suites, are distinguished by their extreme simplicity as well as their great complexity.
From the 1970s onwards, her work took a decisive turn. In addition to dance, she began creating “Wall Carpets”—vast textile compositions made without rules or theory, guided, in her own words, “only by passion.”
Moving from one medium to another, from the notation of movement to textile composition, her work traces a unique path: from the collective expression of the body to a visual language that is almost pictorial. Long overlooked, it is now attracting growing interest among a new generation of artists. “Noa Eshkol, 1924–2007. Dance and Compositions,” the first exhibition in France dedicated to her, offers a journey through her entire life and body of work. It also includes installations by Yael Bartana and Sharon Lockhart.
Born in the kibbutz Degania Bet, founded in 1920, Noa Eshkol trained in Tel Aviv at the school of German choreographer Tile Rössler, a representative of expressionist dance. Immediately after the end of World War II, she continued her studies in Manchester with Rudolf Laban. Unsatisfied with his notation system, she sought her own path.
Upon her return to Israel in 1951, she founded her own company and developed a radical choreographic language. Within a minimalist setting—neutral lighting, black costumes, metronome accompaniment—everything was designed to highlight the precision of the movement sequences.
For nearly twenty years, movement notation was her life’s work. But the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 marked a turning point. Declaring “No time to dance,” she left the stage to devote herself to textile creation. With her troupe, she then produced large-scale works using salvaged fabrics—clothing, scraps—assembled using the appliqué technique. Blurring the lines between abstraction, still life, and landscape, these compositions gave rise to nearly 1,800 works. This output established Noa Eshkol as one of the most inventive and prolific textile artists of the 20th century.
Curated by
Pascale Samuel with Dorota Sniezek
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