The Ngombo (Serie) [The Ngombo (Series)]

The Ngombo (Serie) [The Ngombo (Series)]  Serie

  • 2016
  • Digital copy on Hahnemühle cotton paper (4 works in the Collection)
  • 76 x 61 cm each
  • Cat. F_S_9
  • Acquired in 2017
By:
Carlos Martín

Conceptual artist Maria Loboda uses various media including sculpture, mural painting and objects. She first presented her series of photographs The Ngombo in 2016 at the Maisterravalbuena Gallery in Madrid as part of an exhibition of her work under the title 'Domestic Affairs and Death'. She is interested in the writings of Sigmund Freud and the legacy of psychoanalysis, especially issues concerned with fetishism and individual rituals. The work is an examination of the Freudian moment of death and of a sort of eroticism contained within objects, as the most prosaic icons of modernity. To that end, she approaches contemporary Western individuals using two different genres and formats: man appears as confined, via a number of everyday objects in aluminium suitcases; woman is depicted in The Ngombo by an object which has a strongly intimate meaning and connotations in terms of gender: a handbag.

As if upended in a desperate search for some object inside them, handbags (all of which contain natural elements such as leather or cane) are partly tipped out onto mats made of different materials and meshes that suggest a context other than that in which these accessories are usually found, perhaps the inside of a cabin in some imagined tribal setting. The contents tipped out are also surprising, and reference the two concepts of the exhibition: domestic objects and death. Along with items that one might expect (a pen, a wallet, a bunch of keys, a toothbrush, a make-up mirror, a lipstick and a blister-pack of pills), other, more disturbing objects have fallen out of each handbag: a wing, some bird claws and a number of small bones, hinting strikingly at some sort of magic spell or voodoo that calls for these organic objects as fetishes or votive offerings, kept inside an ordinary bag. The title The Ngombo is taken from a custom of the Chokwe people of central Africa, which translates as 'shaking the divination basket'. This is a reference to a divination system based on objects and represents a guiding spirit or the spectre of an ancestor and protector.

In line with the archaeological and anthropological viewpoint generally taken by Loboda, this combination of consumer products with ritual objects from other cultures seems to hint that there is no difference between them, i.e. that both are used as protection against undifferentiation and as panaceas for dealing with the fear of death, which is ubiquitous but unspoken in today's societies. Pills and dietary supplements approved by modern science appear alongside feathers imbued with the promise of ritual salvation; a lighter lies next to the vertebra of a mammal waiting to be tossed into the air by a shaman; an upturned lady's bag becomes a divination basket that reflects the full context in which the strangeness of ritual violence can be glimpsed among the recognisable, reassuring profiles of domestic objects. With this, Loboda establishes a connection between archaic and contemporary forms of esotericism and superstition, of seeking protection, in which modern individuals tackle intimate, atavistic fears that still remain, even though the owners of these handbags are part of the flow of progress and productivity.

To sum up what she is trying to do, she references the evocative, revealing tale of The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts) by Lord Dunsany (1915), which begins with these words: 'There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money could buy, she had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx.'

Carlos Martín

 
By:
Isabel Tejeda
Maria Loboda
Krakow 1979

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).

Isabel Tejeda

 
«Flowers & Fruit. Banco de España Collection», Banco de España (Madrid, 2022-2023).
Isobel Harbison, Lars Bang Larsen and Caterina Riva Maria Loboda. Oh, Wilderness, Berlin, Sternberg Press, 2012. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.. Vv.Aa. Flores y frutos. Colección Banco de España, Madrid, Banco de España, 2022.