Centre for Contemporary Culture at Palazzo Strozzi

Palazzo Strozzi

ALICJA KWADE

The works of Alicja Kwade play with the perception and imagination of the observer. They force us to rethink our way of looking at reality: are we able to go beyond the codes and conventions that limit our vision of the world and find a beauty, an underlying significance?

In the installation Teleportation, Kwade uses eleven identical table lamps, inserted between large angular sheets of glass. The artist creates a permeable and translucent sculptural landscape, a complex construction of direct light, reflections and mirroring effects, working precisely with distances and perspectives.

The light is “transported” by the reflection in one glass to the next object, creating a sort of multi-focal space. The reflective and mirroring effects create an echo of the same object, a seriality of various points of view of the same lamp within a single space that the visitor is invited to walk through, placing him or herself in a physical relationship with the space. Kwade arrives almost at a dematerialization of the work, discovering that the true protagonist of the installation is the light. The physical consistency dematerializes, and both the light emitted by the lamps and the visitor’s body itself is mirrored and broken up in it.

The work focuses on our ability to perceive the things that surround us through two characteristic themes in the artist’s oeuvre: on the one hand the manipulation or simple reusing of found objects, on the other the concept of the mirroring effect, which becomes the symbol of the Platonic relationship between copy and idea, reality and imagination. Kwade creates an unstable balance between the reality of the objects and their image, continuously transported in the different reflections that change based on our point of observation.

The decision to use eleven lamps creates a reference to a particular evolution of so-called “string theory”, a complex theory that revolutionized the study of physics. Only three lamps are lit, in reference to the three dimensions in which we live.

Alicja Kwade (1979, Katowice, Poland; lives and works in Berlin) draws upon a wide array of materials and media to create her captivating minimalist art, often taking everyday objects out of their usual context and creating a parallel universe where the physical world has been reconfigured. She studied at the Studium der Bildenden Kunst, UdK, Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include: (2013) Alicja Kwade, Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Haus Esters, Germany; (2012) The Heavy Weight of Light, Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York; Die Gesamtheit aller Orte, Kunsthal 44 Møen, Denmark; In Circles, Johann König Gallery, Berlin; Future Past, Grieder Contemporary, Zurich; (2011) Sensor – Zeitraum für junge Positionen, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany; 52°31’17,23, 13°24’02,64, Polnisches Institut, Berlin; Alkahest, Kunstverein Bremerhaven, Germany; (2010) Probleme massereicher Körper, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany; Ereignishorizont, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover; Broken away from Common Standpoints, Museion @ Peep-Hole, Milan. Her most recent collective shows include: Mise-en-Scène. Skulpturale Rhetorik, Kwadrat, Berlin; When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco; One-on-one, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Grey Peak of the Wave, Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York; COLLABORATIONS & INTERVENTIONS, Kunsthalle CCA Andratx, Majorca, Spain; Made in Germany II, Kunstverein Hannover, Germany; A Touch of Life, Gallery Anita Beckers, Frankfurt am Main; GOLD, Belvedere, Vienna; Eros und Thanatos, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Surplus Authors, Witte de With, Rotterdam, Netherlands; A Disagreeable Object, SculptureCenter, Long Island City, New York; New Public, Museion Bolzano, Italy; The Garden of Eden, Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

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