Wschód is pleased to invite you to the opening of a solo presentation The Year of Living Dangerously by Maria Loboda at ECHO, Cologne.
Opening weekend
as part of Dusseldorf Cologne Open Galleries (DC Open):
Saturday, September 3, 1 – 7 pm
Sunday, September 4, 1 – 5 pm
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The project The Year of Living Dangerously was initially presented during Art Basel Parcours 2022 in the Rhine, below one of the two bridges linking the historical neighborhood of the city with the Kleinbasel district, as a collaboration between Thomas Schulte, Berlin,Maisterravalbuena, Madrid and Wschód, Warsaw/Cologne.
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It was tantamount to an art historical crime scene: a cluster of sculptures by Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp, Barbara Hepworth, Jean Dubuffet, and Jeff Koons, washed by the rolling waves, bleaching in the sun.
Maria Loboda called on a number of artists whose practice redefined the thinking about sculpture throughout the 20th century. She then had their works replicated, to scale, to stage this otherwise impossible scenario. The sculptures wade in the water, but also yield to it, as does the whole concept of Loboda: visible, or less so, dependent on the ebb and flow of the river. It’s less of a mockery of the monetary value and more of an unconditional invitation to indulge in thinking of the double, secret, or hazardous life of sculptures […]
Language and translation of signs and meanings play an important part in Loboda’s works. Through the deconstruction and reorganization of common forms and symbols, Maria Loboda has become a unique voice in what is described as contemporary archaeology. Using household items, consumer products, cultural relics or established artworks as a starting point, the sculptor transforms them into often minimalist, yet always highly narrative investigations […] – excerpt from the essay „The Week of Living Dangerously” by Krzysztof Kościuczuk