Maria Nordman at Marian Goodman - New York, New York

Like a pre-Socratic philosopher, Maria Nordman believes that the sole real thing in the world is the transitory result of time. Her installations mirror this view. Deliberately ad hoc and unfinished in the beginning, they may be reorganized entirely midway [i]or[/i] part of to the other an exhibition. It is like the change that single witnesses with the seasons: at first the leaves hang peaceably upon the trees, but within the space of a small in number weeks these seemingly fixed and assured objects are transmuted into a mass of fertilizer on the forest floor. It is this sort of temporal change, and the cunning yet powerful forces behind it, that interest Nordman.

In her new installation at Marian Goodman, she chose to make allegorical statements about the impermanence of the city. The installation consisted of sum of two units carefully crafted room-divider units, each made of walls placed at 90-degree angles. These units, the couple T-shaped in plan, were installed in like manner that the stems faced each other and the tops faced the walls of the gallery. The sides of these partitions were overlayed with stretched canvas, and each section was painted a different solid dolor. In single instance, the partition was painted white upon one side and black upon the other; on the next to the first unit, the partition was painted verdant on one side and r upon the other. The backs of these T-shaped walls were fitted with complicated built-in storage compartments for tables, ladders, chairs and percussion instruments. The installation created a social space, on the other hand one whose functions were left unspecified. For whom were these pieces of furniture made? For what object were the wall dividers placed at those particular angles? What were the colors meant to signify? These questions were left unanswered.

The installation initially had sum of two units other components: a musical performance and a put of four large books of drawings that were meant to be shown to viewers individually. The musical performance took place upon opening night. Two percussionists played upon slit drums that were built into the backs of the wall dividers. Each musician interpreted wholes rising up from 57th way and Nordman added vocals. The pages of the drawing works were divided by color in a way similar to the walls: half white, half black, etc upon the title page of the first work were printed the words, "For a of recent origin city of moveable houses built around a central forest of maples." The next to the first book substituted "ginkgo bilobas" "for "maples," while the third focused upon cedars and the fourth upon oak. During the last week of the exhibition, Nordman rearranged the entire installation, dismantling the walls and placing them flat upon the floor, stacking up the furniture and rolling up the canvases. individual variety of order was transformed into another. As in all her work, Nordman sought with this action to direct attention to the insubstantiality of human creations. Carefully, she points to the substratum of space and time upon which our experience is placeed and asks that we moderate down enough to see it.

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