Yehoshua Neustein: You cannot enter the same river twice
An exhibition showcasing the new sound creation of Joshua Neustein, specifically created for the gallery space at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The work offers a fresh perspective on the 1970 project 'Jerusalem River' and reconstructs a sound sculpture using stainless steel plates and sounds. The exhibition examines the relationship between nature and representation, as well as ways of resisting fixed patterns.
An exhibition showcasing the new sound creation of Joshua Neustein, specifically created for the gallery space at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The work offers a fresh perspective on the 1970 project 'Jerusalem River' and reconstructs a sound sculpture using stainless steel plates and sounds. The exhibition examines the relationship between nature and representation, as well as ways of resisting fixed patterns.
His new work, created specifically for the gallery space dedicated to rotating exhibitions at the heart of the Israeli Art Collection display at the museum, emerged as a distant echo and a fresh examination of the groundbreaking 1970 project Jerusalem River. In the first sound art piece ever produced in the country, Neustein and his project partners, Georgette Bleye and Gerard Marx, placed speakers along the dry bed of Nachal Atzmon, one of the tributaries of the Kidron Valley flowing eastward from Jerusalem. The sounds of flowing water emanating from the speakers created an imagined river, a radical act that challenged distinctions between nature and representation, and between matter and language.
When invited to reconstruct the river’s sound sculpture at the museum, inherent problems naturally arose: Can an earth art piece be revived within the walls of a building? Neustein and the curators faced the question of how to overcome this paradox. The title of the current work—inspired by the famous saying of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “You cannot step into the same river twice”—highlights Neustein’s commitment to the materiality of creation and constant movement, while fundamentally refusing to settle into a fixed or familiar form. In the new work, Neustein outlines the river’s course using stainless steel plates and sound. The twisting steel river defies clear definition as an installation, sculpture, or event, distilling formal and material principles evident in his previous works.
Many of Neustein’s works are composed through sound, and aspects of Steel River resonate with previous installations. You Cannot Step Into the Same River Twice surfaces contemporary crises as a work of institutional critique—a site-specific work that is also time-dependent. Neustein’s creation, which anticipated combining modernist sobriety with eco-poetic sensitivity, celebrates the modernist perspective without abandoning engagement with Jewish identity and issues of tension, displacement, and geographical ambivalence.
