Maria Loboda has made a speciality of digging into obscure histories — and inventing them too. The artist’s installations sit at the intersection of intrigue, fiction, the esoteric and archaeological research, nearly always departing from a seemingly overlooked detail that she renders central, fantastical and always unforgettable. As Lodoba explains:
I am aware that I am speaking about battles that were fought, lost, and won and empires that collapsed a long time ago, but I still wonder if these historical examples provide an eternal warning in their recurrence.
The artist will fill Kunsthalle to the brim with her installations which combine simple-looking objects with layers of encrypted backstories selected from obscure military treatises, alchemy, mythology, the occult and museum research. She transforms her findings into sculptural and photographic works whose force lies beyond any surface aesthetic appeal.
With the exhibition entitled Maria Lodoba: Havoc in the Heavenly Kingdom, Lodoba sees artists as perhaps the only beings with the power to give value to things that ostensibly have none. Therefore, if an exhibition is heaven, artists are the divinities which we invite into channel chaos – all the better to reveal the power structures that actually order the universe.
Maria Loboda (b. 1979 in Kraków) creates spaces of enigma and puzzle that lead deep into the layers of rich historical narratives and refer to the current state of things. Her work has been presented at numerous institutions worldwide including Documenta13, and her solo exhibitions have been held at Museo Reina Sofia, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Oxford Modern, Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto. Currently, a solo exhibition of hers is on at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius: I am Radiant, I am Radiant, I am Radiant in My Defeat.
The exhibition is generously supported by the Ernst & Olga Gubler-Habluetzel Foundation and is made in partnership with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Maria Loboda: Havoc in the Heavenly Kingdom
24th February – 14th May 2017
Kunsthalle Basel
Source: press materials, compiled by NR, 24 Feb 2017