The Central Libraries > Mid-Manhattan Library > Art > Art Wall on Third

Marietta Hoferer

"Malibu"

Marietta Hoferer
Malibu

30 July – 14 October 2009
Art Wall on Third
The Art Collection, 3rd floor
Mid-Manhattan Library
40th Street @ 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10016
212-340-0871
Mon-Wed 9-9, Thu-Sat 10-6, Sun 1-5

The Art Collection at Mid-Manhattan Library is pleased to present an installation of transparent tape and paper reliefs by the well-known German American sculptor Marietta Hoferer. Her inventive approach to collage drawings through the use of tape has elevated a functional material such as industrial tape into an aesthetic level of experience for viewers. As we are drawn into the elegant subtleties of Malibu, we become aware of its meditative quality and are mesmerized by the quiet and whimsical play of light and implied atmosphere. Bruno LeMieux-Ruibal, the Spanish American contemporary art critic and writer, will join Hoferer for an Artist Dialogue on Saturday August 8th at 2:30 p.m. on the 6th floor. The exhibition series Art Wall on Third is curated by Arezoo Moseni.

Artist Statement

I create grid-like formations and abstract compositions with faint pencil and lines of transparent tape, inspired by the rhythms of architecture and weaving. Although subtle, the linear bands and geometric patterning, reveal a luminous surface that changes with the light and differing vantage points.

"Luminosity and an almost metaphysical purity strike the viewer when first encountering the white-on-white, pristine minimal drawings of Marietta Hoferer. Weightless and evanescent, the faint pencil lines and clear tape that she uses to create her works on paper are imperceptible at first glance and require the observer to quietly adjust his or her perception to their subtlety. One must closely examine them, walk up to them and around the room to experience how they respond to the light. It is then that one marvels at the vast variety of systems and patterns and the 'voluptuous' qualities of her nominal materials."
Mercedes Vicente, Curator of Contemporary Art
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand

“Marietta Hoferer's labor-intensive stripe ‘drawings’ are made from grid-like arrangements of tape, their white-on-white composition toying with a minimalist conception of absence. Yet in their careful construction, the result of a meticulous process, the often highly wrought surface also bears the mark of time, resisting any easy reading of the works as simple phenomenological conceits.”
Joao Ribas, Curator
The Drawing Center, NYC

Marietta Hoferer is a 2009 Artist Fellowship recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). This presentation is co-sponsored by Artists & Audience Exchange, a NYFA public program.