Where Art Thou Muse?
William Shakespeare

The Idea of Waiting for Something Makes it More Exciting
Andy Warhol

10 October-14 November 2008. Galeria Foksal, Warsaw.

Entering the gallery through its front door, one detects an (un)familiar, repetitive sound: Somewhere inside the gallery something is clicking, knocking, ticking incessantly. Crossing the gallery's vestibule, through the white corridor and into its main space, one comes upon the image of a gentle hand knocking firmly on the gallery's rear wall. A quick look around: The other three walls are bare. Their striking whiteness recalls that of an empty sheet of paper waiting to be filled with a writer's words: "Entering the gallery through its front door, one detects an (un)familiar, repetitive sound: Somewhere inside the gallery something is clicking, knocking, ticking incessantly. ..."

9 October 2008, Opening night. Galeria Foksal, Warsaw.

In the middle of the gallery, under a bright fluorescent light, a figure is lying motionless inside a raised transparent tank. A somewhat neurotic sound-which calls to mind rapid heartbeats or the restless tick of a metronome-pulsates through the gallery, arousing a sense of restlessness and urgency in the minds and bodies of the audience. These are the poundings of the artwork in the process of its being born. Unlike real birth, however, the figure lying here is at once the mother and the baby, the artist and the artwork, the cause and the effect: A single-person think tank hard at work.

15 September 2008. Poznań.

A facial composite of the artist is constructed by a local police officer according to a description given by an acquaintance of the artist. Copies of the composite will be handed out at Galeria Foksal in Warsaw during the artist's forthcoming exhibition. Art, being a matter not only of creation but also of exploration, entails a search. However, when the distinction between artist and artwork is blurred, the artist's pursuit of the artwork is at the same time the artist's search for herself.

July-August 2008. Tel Aviv.

To reflect, to dream, to daydream, to meditate, to look for something, to look, to research, to be disturbed, to be bored, to be distracted, to be dissatisfied, to be, to eliminate, to remember, to forget, to articulate, to process, to imagine, to understand, and only then-to realize: in form, in matter, in words, in space, in color, in time, with sound, over and over again, each time from the start. While the potential to create-to transform thoughts, reflections, beliefs, desires, feelings, imaginings and dreams into perceived objects-is the positive and constructive drive which underlies all artistic practices, there are always those moments when the possibility of its realization comes into doubt: the writer's block, the artist's paralysis. During these moments, the potential to create encounters the counterpotential to remain silent. However, just as in physics one force can intensify another that is operating in the opposite direction, so can the resistance encountered during the artistic process increase the motivation to create.

At the heart of Nelly Agassi's [b.1973, Israel] solo exhibition at Galeria Foksal stands the endeavor to fulfill the creative drive. Through the meticulous use of diverse artistic media (live performance, sound, video, printed imagery and props), Agassi allows her viewers a glimpse into that moment in the story of art-in-the-making in which the question of potentiality is most acutely felt: the moment of zero-creativity, the nothingness which follows the erotic flirtation with the world and precedes the pleasure of creation. Forever a source of anxiety, Agassi confronts this moment as an inseparable part of the creative process and shows it to be a productive force. Rather than succumbing to the paralyzing possibility that the white sheet of paper should remain bare, she applies a stethoscope to the roaring white silence of the empty page.

Adi Englman
in collaboration with Ariel Krill