NYAB Event - Maria Loboda "The Tempest"

Maria Loboda "The Tempest"

Ludlow 38 / The Goethe-Institut New York

This event has ended.

MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 presents The Tempest, a solo exhibition of new works by Maria Loboda. Loboda channels poetic and historic research into formal equations of language and materiality, examining how they act and interact, and what they can express beyond their common readings. She investigates codes of all kinds and the grammar of materials in various forms, using elements such as stones, language, and plants as artistic material. Last July, Ludlow 38 presented A Guide to Insults and Misanthropy (Garden Version) (2012), a small garden that manifested bitter and sad feelings through the Victorian language of flowers. This work changes in every new edition through Loboda’s botanic choices, running the gamut from boredom (onion flower) and anticipation (gooseberry), to hatred (basil) and disdain (yellow carnation). With its “reading”of flowers, it was a unique take on this year’s theme of translation at Ludlow 38.

In The Tempest, Loboda presents her observations of New York in new works. Arriving just a few months ago, she saw the city as a place where public and private spaces can be inside out, where facades cover and reveal at the same time—a place where the seeming antagonism of withdrawl and nervous output merge. She began her exploration at the General Electric building in midtown Manhattan, an architectural*sculpture which brought her to think about electricity, itself a form of controlled nervousness. The Tempest extends Loboda’s observation*of these layers of apparent contradictions. The exhibition includes levitating everyday objects, collages, and a writing piece embracing this friction of counter1dynamic*qualities such as nervousness and retreat, public and private. It will feature a big beach umbrella with a nervous, crystaline Art Deco pattern, covering half of the exhibition space and shielding another work. This piece traces back to Greta Garbo, who retreated to New York following the end of her film career and hid from photographers through the most dynamic gestures, using various everyday objects. A chain of moments held in an instant which can quickly change, fall apart, or reveal another mystery: The Tempest explores these concepts in a poetic yet abstract form.

This exhibition marks the conclusion of Clara Meister’s curatorial residency at Ludlow 38. It is accompanied by a publication including a conversation between Meister and Loboda as well as an essay by Isobel Harbison.