Maya Stefania Wibling - (IF A MAN IS A MAN) A WOMAN IS A GOD: One of four simultaneous exhibitions

MAYA STEFANIA WIBLING 

Maya Stefania Wibling (b. 1977, Denmark) primarily works in painting in both abstract and figurative motives. In recent years she has increasingly focused on figuration.

Wibling’s more recent works revolve around empowering women and the female figure. In her work, she emphasizes and investigates the female connection to history, mythology, tales, and nature. The women in Wibling’s works gaze back at us, manifesting themselves as autonomous beings. Animals, fruits, textiles, and flowers are also often a part of Wibling’s works, as well as different symbols; perhaps underlining the mythological references in the works. These references are based upon Wibling’s personal interest in history; who wrote and writes it, and in the apparent and deliberate absence of the female in big history, including art history.

Wibling holds a BA in Classical Archeology from Aarhus Universitet, went to California Academy of Painters, and graduated from Aarhus Art Academy. She has had both solo and group exhibitions.

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

I’ve borrowed the exhibition title from a hip hop, suggestive song by Tommy Genesis. It repeats this sentence and states almost logically that if ‘man’, meaning human, is a man, women must be gods. It got me thinking about history (and the very curated writing of history), mythologies, religions, and politics. Narratives around women, and so the self and gender, are central points for all four artists. I wanted to fill the gallery with ‘cool female energy’ and make a point out of it. The four artists embody exactly that.

Although the exhibition title may indicate that this is a group exhibition, it must not be understood that way. Rather, see it as four parallel solo exhibitions with four prominent artistries. The curatorial approach is simple, but at the same time complicated. These four artists have been chosen because they, in their own way, and over a long period of time, with their artistic work have examined what it means to them to be a woman. It is about myths, ideas, prejudices, one’s own and other people’s expectations, bodily pleasure and change, social control and shame. So, think of the exhibitions as four books, written by individual authors, with different lives, but which make sense to read in light of each other.

Curated by Simone Aalbæk Høyersten