Maria Nordman. Alicia Chillida

In the context of La Noche en Blanco, on September 22, 2007 La Casa Encendida presents two specific projects, produced for this occasion, by the artist María Nordman. Aligned with the Autumnal Equinox, the Concert-Collage enter  some elements of the sculptures and drawings in the music and it is the performers and guest artists who interact with the works: Irene Díaz on castanets, Tomasito on vocals, Jorge Gómez Vidal on guitar, Bandolero and Sergio Martínez on flamenco cajón, under the direction of Nordman. For the artist "every person known or unknown  is invited to be co-constructor of the work" and it is the word that supports this construction. To speak (to sing, to dance) is or can be to construct. The sculpture that welcomes the musicians during the concert includes chairs, tables and plants, recurring elements around the notion of conversation and exchange so dear to the artist. 

The drawing/sculpture series Standing Pictures presented at the exhibition in the courtyard of the Casa Encendida under the title: Rooms for a New Community, are diagrams that try to apprehend the urbanization systems from their origins, they are ontological schemes in which appear represented plans with the beginning of the "New City", with the constructions and the movements of its inhabitants: "The New City begins with the Construction of La Casa de Invitados Continua" Nordman states.

At Rooms for a New Community y Cave-Give-a-Lightits author establishes a dialogue between two places, distant in time and space: the city of Madrid in the present time and a remote place in the interior of the earth: the cave of the Casares, in Riba de Saelices, Guadalajara.  In view of the engravings it contains, Nordman proposes that "this space should be renamed as Cave-Give-a-Light 35,000 BC - 2007, as a continuous inter-maintained collaborative sculpture.  and preserved by our ancestors from various cultures. People who wish to interact with this contemporary sculpture, can travel and visit this place located in Castilla LA MANCHA."

The workshop given at the European University by the artist and curator, includes master classes and a field work where the observation of the sun (a constitutive element of Nordman's work) takes place from the telescope of the Real Observatorio de Madrid; and the trip to the Cueva de los Casares, home of a series of Paleolithic engravings that make it one of the most important sites in the Iberian Peninsula. 

Maria Nordman was born in Silesia, "where the German language meets the Polish language, a city divided by a river". Emigrated to the United States as a child, her work maintains a strong link with nature; the influence of light, temperature, movements in space, trees, the cadence of a voice, music, architecture and more recently theater, are some of the many directions in which the artist turns to for her sculptures and drawings.

Nordman has given numerous concerts based on his drawings-scores. From his first interventions he questions "anyone" about the place and time of a work of art. Ten years before the great public calls for sculpture in the city, such as Skulptur Münster, or Chambres d'Amis in Ghent, Maria Nordman produces seminal works in the construction of the idea of art in "open places in the city neighborhoods where people live and work". Her work is essential to understand contemporary public art, which she influences in a radical way by tracing new paths, we can associate it to that of some artists of her generation such as Lawrence Weiner or Michael Asher.

Maria Nordman creates numerous outdoor sculptures in the form of tree plantations: De Civitate Münster, Münster, 1997, and Ground Squirrel Park, the drawings are both geometric drawings seen from the sky and a subtle gardening exercise, where issues such as the species chosen, the orientation in reference to the sun and wind, and even the nature of the soil and rainfall must be taken into account.

For forty years the city has been and continues to be the creative engine of his work, in which sunlight is "the constant", together with people and nature, are what form the constructive element of the work. His first sculptures in 1967, empty rooms, (time-specific/site specific), in L.A, California, take place in an anonymous time and space outside the museum. "This work exists only in a context open to anyone," they invite a temporary presence of the "collaborator" (Nordman rejects the word spectator). As she states: "My works are not ephemeral, they last as long as human consciousness endures. Memory has more substance than the walls of the buildings themselves".