Exhibition view MARUŠA SAGADIN WET FEET, Cukrarna, Ljubljana 2022 (Photo: Cäcilia Brown, Andrej Peunik/MGML)
MARUŠA SAGADIN Christine König Galerie
Maruša Sagadin’s concern is with the liberating influence of postmodern architecture (Denise Scott Brown) in which the feminist artist sees a daring blueprint for challenging hierarchical, phallocentric, and patriarchal conceptions of beauty. Her sculptures touch on playfulness, imagination, and the pop-cultural accessibility of postmodern art, while working with the motif of the body, its form, its needs, and the care it requires – both the body of the particular viewer they are concerned about (and whom they provide with seating), and the human body as the universal measure of all sculpture. [...] The nature of Maruša Sagadin’s work is neither typical nor unusual for feminist aesthetics – it is one of its many forms.
(quot. Vit Havránek, curator U3 Triennale of Contemporary Art, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana, 2019)
MARUŠA SAGADIN, born in 1978, is a Slovenian artist living and working in Vienna. She studied Architecture in Graz and Performative Arts and Sculpture with Monica Bonvicini at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
Important solo exhibitions took place at MAK Center LA (2022), Cukrarna Ljubljana (2022), Vestiyllands Kunstpavillon Denkmark (2020), Halle für Kunst und Medien Graz (2018), Space London (2016) and Kunstverein Graz (2010), among others; notable group shows include PLEČNIK 150 YEARS (City Museum of Ljubljana, 2022), SCHINDLER HOUSE LOS ANGELES (MAK Vienna, 2022), Art by Post (Southbank Centre London, 2021), 3rd Industrial Art Biennial (Croatia, 2020), True and False (Skulpturen Triennale Bingen, 2020), Dead and Alive (9th Triennial of Contemporary Art U3 Ljubljana, 2019), Political Affairs - Language Is Not Innocent (Kunstverein Hamburg, 2019), Instructions for Happiness (Belvedere 21 Vienna, 2017), Destination Wien (Kunsthalle Vienna, 2015), In, Out and Art (Forum Stadtpark Graz, 2014), Second Worlds (Steirischer Herbst Graz, 2011).
Sagadin is the recipient of the prestigious Otto Mauer Award (2022), was participating at the ISCP in New York (2015) and received the MAK Schindler Grant in LA (2009).
MARUŠA SAGADIN, Paravent, exhibition view MARUŠA SAGADIN WET FEET, Cukrarna, Ljubljana 2022 (Photo: Cäcilia Brown, Andrej Peunik/MGML)
MARUŠA SAGADIN, exhibition view, BLINDS, BLIND BEES, PLAN B (Otto Mauer Award 2022), Jesuitenkirche, Vienna, 2022
Lara, Luisa, and Juliana are benches arranged to create the atmosphere of a public square. Each sitting surface is body-length, unobstructed by armrests or other hostile, anti-sleeping embellishments. Figurative elements support all three—arms, feet, and breasts. As others approach, the sculptures exaggerate, mirror, and cement visitor body parts within their exteriors. The group encourages citizens to use space, calling their friends to sleep, to smoke, to hang out, to socialize. In that same spirit, beyond seating, they are a stage for a sound performance by the artist Juliana Lindenhofer.
Domesticity and femininity metamorphose into infrastructure, a category restrictively limited to masculine manifestations. Lara, Luisa, and Juliana confidently assert their public nature, fashioned from durable, heavy materials. (...) Imprinted in the pavement-pedestals are remains of footprints, discarded chewing gum, scuff marks, and dirt. Pigment-soaked concrete replicates the texture of fabric, and glossy paint adorns the surfaces like makeup.
- Maruša Sagadin
MARUŠA SAGADIN, Doris Ionic Iconic, installation SPACE, London, UK, 2016 (Photos: Tim Bowditch)
Maruša Sagadin’s Doris Ionic Iconic includes a public bench-like sculpture in front of SPACE Mare Street and in the gallery, a smaller sculpture for sitting on and a series of wall works. The project refers to architectural and bodily forms in combination with post-modern colour palettes and graffiti fonts to make visible a choreographed contemporary urban language.
Highly aware of her architectural predecessors, the artist plays off distinctly historical and contemporary forms and their associated classifications. By renaming the Doric column Doris, Sagadin shifts the concept of support structure to a gendered context. Collapsing the space between the Ionic column and Zaha Hadid’s iconic architectural wave form, Sagadin’s resulting sculptural mash-ups move swiftly between a stadium fashioned into a pair of platform shoes or a skyscraper depicted as a tube of lipstick. Brought together with foundational architectural elements, these associations highlight strength and visibility. The project as a whole reflects numerous perspectives from the general commercialisation of urban space to personal desires, consumer urges and experiences of the individual resident.
- Persilia Caton
MARUŠA SAGADIN, Herz Bar, 2018, Secession, Vienna (Photo: Paul Knight)
Maruša Sagadin’s commission B-Girls, Go! (2018) for KÖR (Art in Public Space, Vienna) is on permanent loan at the sculpture garden of Belvedere21, Herz-Bar (2018) is an Artist Bar, designed by Sagadin for the Secession - both in Vienna.
MARUŠA SAGADIN, B-Girls, Go!, 2018, Belvedere21, Vienna, commissioned by KÖR, Art in Public Space, Vienna (Photo: Johannes Stoll, Belvedere Vienna)
Several centuries of masculine-dominated, gendered urbanism conditioned you, perhaps, to understand public art strictly as commemorative or decorative. You might regard other sculptures as either aesthetic baubles or heroic gestures—precious objects deposited from above to validate its location, a building, a neighbourhood, a city.
Not this. Here is your lucky cap. Fold it over, curve the brim,
and keep it close. It is your faithful companion.
From now on, all you experience together belongs only to you both.
Rather than memorialise teenage subculture as an historic moment or static model to follow, Sagadin recognises its perpetuation, knowing trends never stand still. “B-Boys” are male teenage hip-hop dancers and street artists whose shorthand name reinforces the deeply gendered dynamics present even in emerging culture. In contrast, Sagadin builds a brilliantly coloured, oversized metal baseball cap dedicated to all the female and genderqueer teenagers.
- JL Murtaugh
Formally, Maruša Sagadin’s sculptures refer to an architectural vocabulary, yet they alienate it and add new layers of meaning to it. Sculptures placed on pedestal like models play with the buildings’ tectonics meanwhile establishing anthropomorphic references. The materials used add an additional reference plane: wood, metal and concrete are exhibited in their raw form or cladded in pastel colors. One could refer to it as “Modernism meets Memphis”, but this implies that the verbal aspect backs the works and through the title enunciates a contemporary perspective on the progressive redesign of urban space and its architecture. What is life like under capitalism? Where do high and low meet and what kind of dialogue would they have? By superimposing various perspectives onto the work, Sagadin’s art transcends analysis and abstraction and refers to an inherent change – including changes of social conditions.
(Vanessa Joan Müller, Kunsthalle Wien)
Solo and groups shows at Christine König Galerie and KOENIG2 by_robbygreif (2013-2022):
