Maria Noujaim has developed an artistic language from the relationship of sculptural form, live performance, and dance notation. Currently based in the highlands of Mantiqueira, Brazil, Noujaim’s practice departs from collaborative, workshop-based ways of making and involves rigorous observations and communion with flora and fauna.

At Schwabinggrad, Noujaim presents Leda and the Swan. An installation of two sculptures activated by Noujaim’s dance, the work is a minimal retelling of the aforementioned myth. Depicted in classical and modern painting, sculpture, poetry, and more, Leda and the Swan is the myth of the Spartan queen Leda, pursued by Zeus, who seduces and rapes her in the disguise of a swan. From this ignoble union, Leda gave birth to Helen, later known as Helen of Troy, the famous “face that launched a thousand ships” of the Trojan War. Like the Rape of Europa and other Greek myths of sexual violence and warfare, Leda and the Swan speaks to the brutal force of sexual subjugation that still resonates today.

Using her signature minimal sculptural forms, Noujaim creates an arena in which the narrative of Leda and the Swan is implied. Yet the space also offers itself as both a stage and a score for Noujaim’s performance: it provides the place where the performance happens as much as it ascribes the kind of movements that are possible. Based on her extensive studies of dance notation, Noujaim’s installations form a new kind of choreographic art that expresses itself equally though dance as through sculpture.

Curated by Giampaolo Bianconi

Check our insights section for a teaser of the performance!

Opening

Saturday, 10 Sep 2022, 5pm

Supporters

City of Munich Department of Arts and Culture

Schwabinggrad

Salta art

Maria Noujaim graduated in Dance from the Angel Vianna School (RJ) and Art History from PUC-Rio. Born in 1986, she lives and works in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Her work stems from movements conformed between sculpture and language, with investigations into form and poetry. From a practice that begins in the body, it carries its own spatiality through the use of materials, drawings and the production of scores in the work with interpreters. The artist frequently expands her practice through pedagogical exercises and since 2019 she has been working with psychiatric patients from CAPS EAT at Engenho de Dentro, Rio de Janeiro. She had a solo show, “Restarts: four beginnings,” at Jaqueline Martins Gallery (São Paulo) and has participated in group shows in independent and institutional spaces such as Observatório (São Paulo), Change-Change (Budapest), Oi Futuro (Rio de Janeiro), Casa França-Brasil (Rio de Janeiro), Galeria Bruno Múrias (Lisboa), among others.  In 2020, she was selected for the Grants and Commissions Program Award of Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (Miami, USA).