Alicja Kwade © Alicja Kwade Photo: Fabrice Seixas
EXTRAORDINARY ARTIST
While the term “EXTRAORDINARY ARTIST” is applied to many ( and too many times), none is more deserving of that accolade than Alicja Kwade. Alicja Kwade, was born in Katowice Poland in 1979 and studied art at Berlin’s Universität der Künste.
This new work,”The Void of the Moment in Motion” (“Die bewegte Leere des Moments),” 2015 on exhibition at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is described by Frieze Magazine:
“Like earlier art works – such as Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hour Psycho (1993) or Christian Marclay’s Telephones (1995) – the works of [Alicja Kwade] the Berlin-based Polish artist refer directly to the language of cinema …. Since its early days, cinema has been described as a kind of ‘dream machine’ that has the ability to blur the boundaries of reality and imagination, extending the viewer’s realm of perception.
“The transference of this dreamlike cinematic quality onto sculptures and installations is a constant theme in Kwade’s work. She frequently stretches and contorts every day objects and materials into compositions in which the elements are juxtaposed or mirror one another, in installations that can provoke both feelings of awe and of constriction.”
Here is a description, of the exhibition, this time by uk.blouinartinfo.com
“Reality is not a stable construct, it’s only ever a snapshot in time,“ Berlin based sculptor and mixed media artist Alicja Kwade once said in an interview. For her current exhibition at Frankfurt’s Schirn Museum she has transformed this observation into a large scale installation that fills the museum’s cylindric rotunda.
“The Void of the Moment in Motion” consists of a rock and an analogue clock, both suspended on rotating ropes, whose movement is reflected by the rotunda’s window gallery that Kwade has turned into a mirror cabinet of sorts. The evanescence of time is thus reflected into infinity, leaving it to the viewers to come to terms with a situation both visible and virtual.
As described by ArtDaily, “The installation by Alicja Kwade at the Schirn Kunsthalle deals with the actual movement of time.”
Here is another captivating video of her work: Alicja Kwade: “Nach Osten”, 2011 / 2014, at the Kunsmuseuem St.Glalen:
QUIET, CONFIDENT, CREATIVE
If there is ever a depiction of an artist as representing “quiet, confident, creativity” it is Alicja Kwade.
Whither the Book 