Nelly Agassi
Untitled (No Stepping Outside the Lines and No Touching on the Floor)
Nelly Agassi, Untitled, 1999, video, 2min53, ed.2/3
Untitled (No Stepping Outside the Lines and No Touching on the Floor)
Year:
1999
Edition:
2/3
Mediums:
Duration:
2min53
Collection:
Nathalie and Jean-Daniel Cohen

Agassi’s work process is full of obsessive, repetitive, sisyphean actions, which function as a gripping point, as a sole possibility, as a connection to reality, to safe ground. Her work represents an important and fascinating transition in the feminist thinking and practice of the nineties, a transition from a declared engagement with feminism to an existent engagement with femininity. This is, to a large extent, a post-feminist stage, which entails an engagement with the private and the intimate, not from the starting-point of social immobility or of weakness, but from a starting-point of privilege and of choice. Agassi’s works do echo the traditional, domestic, women’s crafts – embroidery, sewing, knitting – but her use of these materials is not conventional, certainly not functional, and accumulates a different resonance that stems from the sober awareness of the moment of choice.