Naama Tsabar

Never Can Say Goodbye

This video art starts as a cover version for the pop song “Babies” by the band Pulp. The start of the video is shot like a musical clip that features a band on a small stage performing in an industrial urban space. The band consists of only women and the once male sang lyrics are now sang by the lead female singer (Chorus: ”I want to take you home/I want to give you children/yes you might be my girlfriend”).

The turning point in the video occurs when the singer finishes to sing the lyrics of the song and has reached a climax point, at this moment she takes off her guitar and begins to slam it against the stage, in an attempt to break it.

The guitar hits the stage numerous times but does not break, instead the instrument begins to break the stage itself. At this point the camera films the whole breaking as a one shot sequence with no editing.

The singer continues to hit the stage creating a big gap in it while the guitar stays intact, this only ends after a good couple of minutes when the singer is exhausted and cannot continue the breaking act any more.

In this video, Naama Tsabar deals with male dominant myths, raising questions about issues concerning female phallic roles, gender, violence, sexuality, and power.

Tsabar is also interested in the shifting of languages, the moment the video flips from being an edited and stylized musical clip into an documentation of a performative act, communicating with documented performances of the 70’s, and also when a stage becomes a sculpture and when a musical venue becomes the artist’s studio.