Milli Bofilli
Künstler/in
Marusa Sagadin
(geb. 1978 in Ljubljana, Slowenien)
Date2018
ClassificationsObjekt
MediumHolz, Metall, Beton, Lack
Paper Support5-teilig
Dimensions165 × 60 × 85 cm
Credit LineArtothek des Bundes
Object number28464
DescriptionThe measureless wit with which human measure constantly comes hurtling at us and speaking to us in the upright abstract sculptures of Maruša Sagadin directly encapsulates the essence of the work Milli Bofilli. Her monoliths, to be sure, work as a kind of modernist document, but one that is alienated from itself, since its allegedly autonomous form always proves to be allied to its own alterity – to human measure. All these three-dimensional self-disciplined volumes slip up: they acquire extensions that evoke, on the one hand, a body (and an emphatically female body at that) and, on the other, a function, for they are remarkably inviting as shelves, benches, and the like. The very title of the work – Milli Bofilli, an amalgam of the names of the (in)famous pop duo Milli Vanilli and one of the icons of postmodern architecture Ricardo Bofill – alerts us to the postmodern hybridity of references, from pop culture to architecture, that are here literally combined in a sculptural rebus. In purely formal terms, the rebus is composed of variations on the letters M and B, but in such a way that its slender abstraction assumes the shape of someone who, with half an M, is about to stride out of the room as B-shaped locks of their hair blow behind them. Milli Vanilli is symptomatic of the way Maruša Sagadin’s works affect us: they first intrigue us with their codedness, but then this same quality very quickly lends itself to such direct interpretation that we are not sure if what we are seeing is really there or if we have taken the whole thing too casually. Maruša’s sculptures, it seems, are asking to be read “casually” and the incidental admixing of autobiographical or pop elements is a way of reassessing the hierarchies of power that determine the perception and role of art.Text: Vladimir Vidmar
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