ON VIEW
Maria Belova: Nobody’s Watching
Vienna Collectors Club
Herrengasse 6-8/2/7, 1010 Vienna
12 December 2024 - 10 January 2025
Tuesday - Thursday 12.00-17.00
and by appointment
What connects the high-tech visuality of drones to the Christian worldview? Maria Belova's upcoming exhibition, “Nobody's Watching”, examines the dynamics of governance, religion, and power. At the core of the exhibition is an investigation into how the omnipresent gaze of surveillance technology reflects the Christian idea of an all-seeing divine. Belova questions whether these systems of control mirror divine authority or reinforce earthly hierarchies.
Maria’s multifaceted practice reveals a blend of performance and objecthood, where the two are in a constant state of dialogue and exchange. It is predicated on her ability to make the invisible visible, to give form to the formless, and voice to the silent. Her works, imbued with a sense of absence, explore human desire for connection and transcendence, as well as the power structures that shape and constrain those aspirations.
Fine Art (Mary Evans), Chelsea College - University of the Arts London, 2023
Art Photography (Anja Manfredi), Schule Friedl Kubelka Wien, with the teaching contributions by Elfie Semotan, Josephine Pryde, Timm Rautert & others, 2019–2020
PASSAGE, accompanying program with Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl, Falckenberg Collection Deichtorhallen Hamburg (DE), 2024
Women in Tech, Villa Mautner Jäger, Vienna, 2024
Interspace, Galeria WY, Łódź (PL), 2024
ReA! Art Fair, Milan (IT), 2023
PARALLEL VIENNA, Vienna, 2023
Figures of Imagination. Trans..., Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna, 2022
Soft Machine, Phileas – The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art, Vienna, curated by Jakob Lena Knebl, 2022
Anti–Anti–Anti: de-visibility, unbiased biases and friends, Angewandte Festival, Vienna, curated by Mauricio Ianes de Moraes, 2022
Get It While You Can!, Never At Home, Vienna, co-curated by Maria Belova, 2022
Search for Your People, performative action with Mariya Vasilyeva, University of Applied Arts, Vienna, 2022
A shop is a shop is a shopbeta. Conceptual store, Kunsthalle, Vienna, curated by Klaus Speidel, 2022
Maria Belova: Unspoken, solo show in Konzilgedächtniskirche, Vienna, curated by Gustav Schörghofer SJ, 2021
The 8th Catholic Arts Biennial, The Verostko Center for the Arts, PA (USA), 2021
REALITY, Kunstsalon FLUC, Vienna, curated by Anna Zwingl & Brigitte Kowanz, 2021
Stille Räume, das Weisse Haus, Vienna, curated by Itai Margula, 2020
Bingo!, performative solo intervention, Belvedere 21, Vienna, 2020
Net Works, with Darja Shatalova, Kara Agora European Art & Research Center, online, curated by Julia Hartmann, 2020
Ya I Ona, performance with Darja Shatalova, in the framework of Question Me & Answer, Improper Walls, Vienna, curated by Smaranda Krings, Osama Zatar & Justina Speirokaite, 2019
Freelance art documentation & Content creator (with viennacontemporary, Phileas, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, ZAHORIAN & VAN ESPEN gallery, das weisse haus, Question Me & Answer, Improper Walls gallery, lt.art festival, multiple individual artists), 2020–now
Co-Curator, Get It While You Can!, Never At Home, Vienna (with Ganaël Dumreicher, Isolar Mesec, Felix Schellhorn, Marlene Stahl, Iris Writze), 2022
PR & Communications Responsible, A shop is a shop is a shopbeta. Conceptual store, Kunsthalle, Vienna, 2022
Unspoken, 2020/21
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4 channel sound installation, 12:02 min, dimensions variable
“Unspoken” is a sound installation consisting of 4 speakers spread in space and hidden from the viewer’s eyes. The barely audible singing is heard from them, appearing and fading away in different places, bringing the observer in a state of slight delusion. If one keeps their ears open, they would hear that that murmuring polyphony is actually praying, however appearing quite mechanical and inhuman. What seems to be a human voice first is in fact Siri, aligned and tuned to imitate chanting. The prayers she chants are taken from the online prayer walls — websites where people can post about their needs so others who come across those pleas can pray for them in response.
Maria Belova collected those posts, belonging to people of different religious backgrounds, age, social status and origin, and created a collective timeline piece — a lifespan of an abstract human being, with their requests changing from childhood to senility. Problems at school, broken hearts, health issues, spiritual quests, troubles with career, taxes and even unwanted insects in the house — all of it becomes equally relevant in this chaotic polyphony of the existence. Thus the artist emphasizes similarities that unite men and women in every quarter of the world and states: despite a common fallacy that technological development “liberates” us from being religious, people do believe like they always did and continuisly find new ways to express it.