Maria Loboda

Krakow 1979

By: Isabel Tejeda

Maria Loboda took a Fine Arts degree at the Städelschule in Frankfurt (Germany) from 2003 to 2208. She then completed a specialist course at New York University, where she was a visiting artist in 2008. She currently divides her time between Berlin and London.

She works in many disciplines, and her output includes photography, drawing, illustration, audio, sculpture and installations. She focuses on analysing signs and symbols in contemporary objects. She recontextualises current objects so that they become both useful instruments and fetishes, highlighting the ungraspable frontiers between the two areas and connecting the contingent with the spiritual. This discourse must be interpreted from an archaeological viewpoint, with found objects that must be interpreted on the basis of coded meanings; objects used as panoplies of survival. Loboda has declared an interest in intuitive knowledge and in the history of art: 'I am inspired by the art-making tradition, the knowledge behind craft, the systems, materials, ingredients one needs to create something. I am sort of fearful about becoming professional in any craft. I prefer to be a visitor; who doesn't speak the language particularly well, but understands enough to knowingly misapprehend'.

Her work has been exhibited at venues including the Bielefelder Kunstverein (Germany, 2009), the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2013), the Kunstverein Braunschweig (Germany, 2013) and the CAC (Contemporary Art Centre) (Vilnius, Lithuania, 2017). She took part in Documenta 13 (Kassel, Germany, 2012) and in the Taipei Biennial (Taiwan, 2014).