That obscure object (The bad boys of Harvard)

10.12.2010

A work in the “New Frankfurt Internationals” performance series, Maria Loboda’s performance/installation draws on the notion of radical landscape arrangements developed in the 1930s by Garrett Eckbo and James Rose. Multiple geometrically trimmed boxwoods are the central characters of this work of art; every week they shift locations along the segment of Braubachstrasse between the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst and the Frankfurter Kunstverein. As a “forest in motion” they refused to take passive role as decorative garden pieces and instead “got in the way” of architecture in public space. The narrative of the performance gradually emerged over the course of the entire period of the exhibition. By changing the positions of the boxwood Loboda also plays on the “continuity mistakes” that occur in film. These inconsistencies resulting from the miscoordination of scenes or editing now enter the realm of daily life and suggest a loss of control over everyday experience. The surreal space opening up in the city landscape enables viewers to experience their own stories in a new way relative to time and place.

Maria Loboda (born 1979) studied at the Städelschule, Frankfurt a.M. She lives and works in Berlin.

Die Performance/Installation entwickelt sich an verschiedenen Orten entlang der Braubachstraße, Frankfurt a.M. zwischen dem MMK und dem Frankfurter Kunstverein