Centre for Contemporary Culture at Palazzo Strozzi
Palazzo Strozzi
Nina Beier
The power of the contemporary to extrapolate elements from the past through codes and current practices shows that the respect of the past is always associated with the ability to keep an idea of culture alive.
NINA BEIER
Perfect Duty, 2014
Bronze statues, Persian carpets, banknotes
Courtesy the artist and Croy Nielsen, Berlin
The centrality of conceptuality in contemporary culture, and therefore also in sculpture, transpires in a particular way in the works by Nina Beier. Her work on exhibition addresses the problem of the representative value through the presentation of sculptures from the Gallery of Modern Art in Palazzo Pitti. The power of the contemporary to extrapolate elements from the past through codes and current practices shows that the respect of the past is always associated with the ability to keep an idea of culture alive. The combination of different elements become for Beier a way to create sculptures that show the exchanges and overlaps that occur in contemporary culture. In particular, the work on display (Perfect Duty, 2015) shows money, art and the carpet as symbols of commercial exchange. The work consists of a ready-made of elements on loan, to be given back to their owners at the end of the exhibition.
Nina Beier was born in 1975 in Aarhus, Denmark. She currently lives and works in New York, USA. Recently her work has been presented in solo shows such as: Nina Beier, Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg (2015); Four Stomachs, Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp (2015); Nina Beier, David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2014); Office Nature Nobody Pattern, Croy Nielsen, Berlin (2014); Sweat no Sweat, Mostyn, Llandudno (2013). Among her participations to group shows we note: The Peacock, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (2014); The Brancusi Effect, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2014); Decorum, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (2013); Veerle, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2013); L’Image dans la sculpture, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013)
