The Long Beach Museum of Art’s newest installation will invite residents to step inside a looming, menacing structure taking over its space, and into an intricate labyrinth from the mind of local artist Daniela Soberman.
Soberman’s installation, which will hold residence at the museum until Nov. 5, explores the illusion and impermanence of home as a “temporary dwelling familiar only because of the people who share in its assemblage,” according to the artist’s statement.
This sentiment is brought to life through a large building-like structure made up of gray and white interlocking pieces, with a hidden world inside. The pieces took Soberman over a year to create, marking the first time residents can view the installation in its entirety.
“What looks to be a very simple construction … There’s a lot of time and effort that goes into it as well as the treatment of each of [the pieces]. Kind of puzzle pieces fitting together,” said Ronald Nelson, executive director of Long Beach Museum of Art. “So it’s very basic, brutalist in some ways, but it’s also very sophisticated and lovely in other ways. That combination of high and low for me is just fantastic. I love it. Like street art coming into a gallery.”
The large, jagged pieces were inspired by her parents’ journey immigrating to the United States from Yugoslavia in the 1970s. While the outside of the installation resembles her first home architecturally, the inside is a maze that serves as commentary on the journey through life and the human condition.
“So it looks really massive and heavy and really structural, but it’s easily breakable,” Soberman said. “It’s very much about people. People are very similar, right, we have a hard outer shell. We are actually very breakable.”
From the outside, the installation resembles “giant lifelike building blocks,” Soberman said. The plain, interlocking pieces are reminiscent of the brutalist architecture style which became popular in Europe post World War II. The reconstructionist style showcases the bare material of buildings and favors stark, menacing elements over modern decorative designs.
“We all start off constructing our environments, like as people, we build things, and then those things fall apart,” Soberman said. “Then we have to pick up the pieces and reconstruct parts of life and create new meaning.”
Soberman has had a lifetime of practice trying to create meaning out of an unfamiliar environment. She watched her parents struggle to find a sense of community in the U.S., and found herself in the middle of two worlds as she grew up—her identity as an American and a first-generation child of immigrants.
“As a first generation [child], you always feel like an outsider and you are trying to figure out how to not just enter into American culture, but how to not lose your own,” Soberman said. “When you don’t have a community, it’s harder so you’re trying to figure out what pieces to incorporate and what pieces not to lose.”
While Soberman is still in the process of finding that community, her roots as an artist continue to lead her back to the Long Beach Museum of Art. Her first piece ever sold was to Nelson, the museum’s current executive director.
“Well, the first time I’d seen [Soberman’s] work, I thought it was so superb and … I kept going, ‘How do I not know [who] this woman is, she’s fantastic,’’’ Nelson said. “I asked around, no one seemed to know who she was. I also ended up purchasing a piece of work from her collection without even knowing the artist.”
Nelson also curated Soberman’s first ever show at the museum, and the pieces used in “Points of Intersection” were used during Getty 25, a two-day festival put on by The Getty and the City of Long Beach at Houghton Park in June. The pieces were originally commissioned by the Torrance Art Museum.
“Then from there, [the museum] knew that they wanted to have me take over the space and really activate that space in a way that hasn’t been done before,” Soberman said. “So it’s those components plus more. A lot of those pieces got broken or had graffiti on them … a lot of those pieces are still in the installation but they’re mended.”
There will be an opportunity for children to participate in their own inspired creations, as the museum will be giving out similar miniature structures that they can draw on themselves and take home. This community engagement component will be available at the opening of the exhibit and on Second Saturdays on Aug. 13.
“Points of Intersection” will be open to members of the museum on Friday, Aug. 5 at 5 p.m. and to the general public at 7 p.m. Entrance is free and the installation will be available to view through Nov. 5. The Long Beach Museum of Art is located at 2300 East Ocean Blvd. and open Thursday through Sunday from 5 to 11 p.m.
This post was updated on Aug. 8 to correct a typo of Soberman’s name and to clarify that the pieces used in “Points of Intersection” were commissioned originally for the Torrance Art Museum.
