Maria Marshall

Art

The general atmosphere of her films are dreamlike and agonizing. She plays on moral and psychological issues, using digital illusions and creating pieces that, projected as an installation is striking for the spectator's mind.^[7] The intention, she says, is not to shock, but to provoke the viewer through a seductive image to ask himself what makes him feel uncomfortable.^[8][9]

Her  films often revolve around the world of childhood, projecting adult concerns. She stages them in situations that make the adult viewer uncomfortable. Innocence itself becomes ambiguous. It perverts these "taboo" subjects, childhood, innocence, oscillating between good and evil, between sacred and profane.^[10] Children or adolescents are always threatened, confronted with evil, alone in the face of danger. This reflects the anguish of a mother for her children. Her videos, she says, include her paranoia as a mother 2,3,4.^[11][12]

These works continue to be shown internationally for example National Museum of Women in the Arts. With the growth of the internet and freedom of speech protected in the USA, the work has been appropriated by ‘Fake news’ Trolls that use the work to sensationalise for 100,000s of YouTube hits.^[13][14][15]

Marshall has recently created an Alter Ego superhero character Thought, with this character Marshall investigates.^[16] Eradicating fear through the influence of 1000 days of meditation. Emotionally charged films eradicating war,  by erasing thought, silencing  Thought, investigating meditative spaces, such as the Everest series, Thought dances at Mount Everest base camp, a freedom dance, Sufi whirling all around the world and painting the noise around the mind as in Stille and Flak shown at Art Loft Berlin, Werkhalle Wiesenburg, Berlin. In Hair sweet hair a site specific exhibition on the implication of hair on Thought includes paintings sculptures photography and painting.^[17]

The actors in her films are mostly played by herself and her own children, which adds an emotional density and intensity to the work. There is precision in the execution of the work. The mediums, light source and framing. Marshall uses techniques such as loops, zooms and slow motion, to amplify the anxiety and the obsessive side of her films.

The titles of her works, for example: When I Grow Up, I Want To Be A Cooker, are sentences from her children.^[18] The sound is often limited to a child's voice that repeats a looping phrase, such as I Love You Mummy, I Hate You, or a haunting, amplified sound, such as in Playground, the sound of the missing ball on the wall of the chapel. Marshall also uses the potency of silence.^[19][20]

The aesthetics of her works can refer to ancient painting, such as Caravaggio's The Madonna with the Snake, in the case of I Should Be Older Than All of You (a box where a young boy lying, motionless and very calm, is surrounded by snakes. The rigorous composition of the framing is in itself a reference to Baroque painting. This forms a link to Western imagery and consequently makes the films more disturbing.

Selected videos

When I Grow Up I Want To Be A Cooker, (1998). A two-year-old child is seen inhaling a cigarette, and blowing out perfect smoke rings.^[21][22][23]

I Saw You Crying. A teenager laughs in slow motion, in front of a billowing yellow curtain. He raises a gun and shoots towards the camera.. The curtain turns red, as the boy cries.

Trout. A child pedals forward on a  tricycle with a sign that says "Love Me", as he cycles forwards through the public they walk backwards.

Cyclops. Video installation. Two videos projected together in a corner. A woman in underwear on one screen, a child in a vest in the other. The camera revolves around them like a predator in their cold rooms. The woman is lit in a sequence of disturbing lights. There seems to be a longing from one screen to the other to dispel the separation. The sound is recorded from the camera, an ominous sound that matches the movement. The motion control rig is called Cyclops the film is consequently titled Cyclops.^[24]

Playground. A teenager plays football in slow motion against a church, the ball is removed, but the shadow in play. The sound of the ball hitting the wall and the boys efforts amplified, making it resonate. The boy kicks the ball around the Church like an object.This work is anti establishment 7.

Don´t let the T Rex Get The Children. The video begins with a close-up of a child's face who licks the screen and then smiles. As the camera reveals the child’s face in incongruous rapturous laughter, the viewer, first discovers his shaved head and then a bright green straight jacket and a velvet padded cell. These discordant elements are disturbing as they play with our suspension of disbelief.^[25][26]

I Should Be Older Than All Of You, (2000). Using a motion control camera filming the rib cage of a child breathing,  pulling out in slow motion to reveal a child lying still in a box of red and orange silks. With the precision of a Donald Judd structure and Rothko tones. As the camera shows the whole image, slithering in the gold silk edge are snakes, reminiscent of a baroque frame. The snakes slithering towards the child  who is unperturbed.

When are we there?, (2001). The viewer walks up a marble staircase and down a paneled corridor and into room where a woman stands unflinching. The viewer examines the woman and with the gaze appears indentations on the skin, movements, as if it was invisibly touched by the viewer's gaze.^[27][28]  

I Love You Mummy - I Hate You. A hammock rocks, containing two little boys, One says Í love you Mummy, the other says´I hate you. As the hammock repeatedly rocks, rhythmically to the voice, the hammock is presented without the boys.  Initiating a sense of loss".^[29]

Dance for freedom- Thought. Marshall’s alter ego sufi whirls all around the world.

I can see the wood for the trees. Positioned on two opposite screens shows a tank shooting across the space at Thought holding a crying baby. A paintbrush appears in Thought's hand and she makes paint strokes that are simulated to the opposite screen eradicating the tank from the image with brush strokes.^[30]

Solo exhibitions

1998, Team Gallery, New York

1999, Team Gallery, New York - Real Art Ways, Harford, Connecticut

2000, Galerie Vaclava Spaly, Prague - Yves St Laurent, Paris - Oliver Art Center, CCAC Institute, Oakland, San Francisco, Larry Rinder - Gallery 400, University of Illinois, Chicago

2001, Freiburger Kunstverein, Freiburg - Team Gallery, New York

2002, Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur - Palais de Tokyo, Paris - screening/talk, Centre Pompidou, Christine Macel - Team Gallery, New York - Project Space, The Swiss Institute, New York - Site Gallery, Sheffield - Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg

2003, Salon 94, New York, Jeannie Greenberg Vandoren-Rohatn - Ruth and Bill True collection, Western Bridge, Seattle

2004, Cry Pig, Team Gallery, New York - Centre pour l'image Contemporaine, Genève.

2006, Playground, Musée Dauphinois, Grenoble - Three Works, Herzliya Museum, Israel

2009, Artist spotlight.New Frontiers, Sundance

2011, Tank TV, London

2012, In my End is my beginning, site specific installation

2014, Mac's Museum Grand-Hornu, Belgium, curator Laurent Busine

2016, Kaus Australis, Rotterdam

2017, Grace, site specific, curator Nadja Romain, Werkhalle Wiesenburg, Berlin. Freight and Volume, New York.

2018, Hair sweet hair, site specific,Berlin

Group exhibitions

2003, The American Effect, curator Larry Rinder, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. ThrowBack, Team Gallery, New York. Ninos, curator Cristina Zelich, Centro de Arte de Salamanca, Spain. Child In Time, curator Frank Hoenjet, Gemeentemuseum Helmond, Germany. Clash of Cultures, curator Kathrin Becker, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin.

2004, Showcase, South London Gallery, London. Dimension Folly, Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea, Trento, Italy. Présences et Apparitions/une visite particulière, Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain, Marseille, France. Borusan Centre for Culture and Arts, Istanbul, Turkey. Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste, Zwischenwelten, Dresden, Germany.

2005, Fade To Black, Umea Kulturförvaltning, Umea, Sweden.

2006, RUNDLEDERWELTEN, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin.

2008, Curated 3 x 3 Yinka Shonibare.

2009, Centre D'art de Neuchatel, France. Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Barcelona, Spain. Musee national de Céramique, Aix en Provence, France. Azerbaijan Biennale.

2010, Apexart Gallery, New York. Centre photographique d'ile-de-France, Paris. Closed Circuit: Video and New Media, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Shenzhen Biennale, Shenzhen, China.

2012, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria, Sheffield Docfest.

2013-14, Centre Pompidou festival. Ikono festival. Pinault Collection at the Conciergerie, Paris. Triple tour, curator Anne Pierre d'Albis, LVMH Red square, Moscow, . Faking it, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. .

2014, Manifesta 10, Hermitage Museum USSR, Alanica National Russian collection,Toronto University gallery, Dazibao Centre, Montreal.

2015, Playback, Pierre Hubert collection. Shanghai, Moscow Biennial.

2016, So many steps so little time. Bruges, Belgium.

2017, Frankfurt Biennial. Revival, National Museum of Women in the Arts. Bright Childhood, curator Marco Hompes, Museum Villa Rot', Germany. Mixed Pickles, curator Nils Muller, Kunstraum der Michael Horbach Stiftung. 118 th edition of Verona Fieracavalli, curator Rebecca Russo (collection director of Videoinsight).

2018, 1968: Sparta Dreaming Athens, curator Philippe Méaille, Château de Monsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art, Montsoreau, Loire Valley. Two sides of Pankow Berlin ( June- September) Art loft ‘Reloaded’ (October).

Selected collections

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA ,The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA, Fonds Regional d'Art Contemporain, PACA, Marseille, France, Musée des Arts Contemporains, Grand Hornu, Belgium, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME, USA, The Progressive Collection, Cleveland, OH, USA, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo per l'Arte, Torino, Italy,The Contemporary Arts Society, London, United Kingdom, Site Gallery, Sheffield, United Kingdom, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent, Belgium, The Robert J. Shiffler Collection, Greenville, OH, USA, Bill and Ruth True Collection, Tony Podesta Collection,National Museum of Women in the Arts, LVMH, Pinault Collection, Zablodovitch collection, Auckland print studio, National centre for contemporary art, Francis Greenburger collection.^{[31][32][33][34][35][36][37]}

Bibliography

• Maria Marshall: I Love You Mummy, I Hate You, exhibition catalog Busine, Laurent (Curator), Gielen, Denis (Texts), Grand-Hornu, Museum of Contemporary Arts, 2013.
• Maria Marshall, Dorothea Strauss, MODO Verlag, 2002.
• Double trouble = Cifte bela. Beral Madra editions, 2001.
• Maria Marshall, Jane Norrie, Maria Marshall editions, 1992.