about
Portrait by Adam Axel
In this quickly changing technological world, we constantly need to negotiate our relationship with memory, identity, physical body, society and similar technicalities. Absorbed in an endless digital present, we live connected to networks that flatten the experience of time. As we become extensions of the technologies we use, our tools change us and change the way we respond to the world. These subtle, yet deep transformations, routed in the complicated systems that machines weave around us, are my main concerns. My practice portrays a collection of failed attempts of the ingenious human spirit to control chaos, find a purpose immersed in an information overflow, decode undecipherable codes, recover from erroneous processes and failed visionary ideas. Misconceptions about the past and the future as well as new and old technologies are a continuous source of inspiration. Each of my artworks is an attempt to find a sense of wholeness and purpose in an ever changing, cold systematic world.
Maria Antelman (b. 1971, Athens, Greece) is a sculptor working with 35mm film photography, sculpture, sound and animation. She approaches technological progress from a feminine perspective, reevaluating our connection to mother-nature, our historical past, technology and the Self. Recently her works have been presented at Melk in Olso, Foreland in Catskill, Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Visual Art Center in the University of Texas in Austin, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in Athens and at the Bemis Center in Omaha NE. She has been an artist in residence at Silver Arts Projects at the World Trade Center, at Pioneer Works and the International Studio & Curatorial Program, all in New York City. Antelman holds an MFA in New Genres from Columbia University and a BA in Art History from the Complutense University in Madrid. She lives and works in New York and in Athens.