The Year of Living Dangerously 25

In her sculptures and installations, Maria Loboda examines cultural codes and the historically evolved meanings of objects. She places objects, forms and symbols in new perspectives – as in the installation “The Year of Living Dangerously”, which was created during the Covid pandemic. For this work, Loboda brings together replicas of well-known works by Jean Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Jean Dubuffet, Barbara Hepworth and Jeff Koons. They all represent important developments in 20th-century sculpture, but in Blickachsen 14 they lie, seemingly careless, between a discarded bicycle and an abandoned shopping cart on the banks of the Kurpark pond. The contrast between the ideational value of the artworks and their placement raises the question: were the sculptures washed out of a flooded museum or sculpture garden? Or should they be unobtrusively disposed of here? Loboda‘s work thus invites us to reflect on the transience and temporality of art and its significance in an uncertain world.
Maria Loboda studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. She has presented her work internationally in solo and group exhibitions, including at documenta (2012), the Taipei Biennial (2014) and the Venice Biennale (2019).