Alicja Kwade:
Lead In.

FEATURE by Louise Martin–Chew February 2021

Image credit: Installation view Alicja Kwade, Kausalkonsequenz, 2020 Langen Foundation, Neuss Photo: Roman März. Courtesy the artist, 303 Gallery, New York and KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin/London © Alicja Kwade

 

Alicja Kwade likes to ask herself questions that she (and others) can’t definitively answer. For her, art is the vehicle she uses to explore issues that become too large and complex to be contained. These questions grow wider as she drops down their rabbit hole, eventually finding herself “way out in the Milky Way.” As a result, what she makes while exploring these puzzles is often large and expansive, offering up unexpected realities and, at times, unsettling conundrums.

Kwade is only 41 years old, but her career is global. Opportunities continue to roll in, crowding her CV, even during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Her immersive installation WeltenLinie (2017) is a highlight of the NGV Triennial in Melbourne (until 18 April 2021). In 2021 she will have a solo exhibition in Berlin, following two in 2020 (at the Langen Foundation in Neuss and at König Galerie in Tokyo). In 2019, she had five solo exhibitions across the world, in the US, Italy and France. There were also three monographs published on her work in 2019, with eight preceding
them (since 2010).

Talking to Kwade via Zoom early one Tuesday morning in Berlin – a sultry Tuesday evening in Brisbane for me – reminded me of the brain stretch I experienced while watching the sci-fi epic Interstellar (2014), when new possibilities crowded in, plausible and researched, albeit vested in fantasy. We spoke about how she explores the tenuous nature of reality and the importance of art in public places. ...Subscribe to read this article in full