Kunsthal Charlottenborg presents the first major exhibition in Denmark of the acclaimed Polish-born artist Alicja Kwade (b. 1979). During the last decade, Kwade has rapidly become a rising star, winning global attention and a prominent place on the international contemporary art scene. Her remarkable career includes exhibitions at leading museums and galleries such as London’s Whitechapel Gallery, Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof, and the Venice Biennial.
Kwade’s poetic sculptural landscapes often consist of familiar objects and commonplace natural materials stripped of their usual function and imbued with new properties and value. Mass, surfaces and materialities act in new ways: pebbles have been cut and polished as if they were diamonds, coal comes disguised as gold bars, and branches, glass and copper rise up from the ground, defying gravity. The laws of nature are suspended as Alicja Kwade draws us into her warped version of reality, which is both recognisable and alien, near and far away, real and unreal.
Alicja Kwade challenges our understanding of abstract concepts such as the nature of time, space and light, the laws of physics, the mysteries of science and the deeply embedded social conventions that form the bedrock of our perception of reality. She raises these large questions in a light-hearted, poetic and humorous way that provokes curiosity, wonder – and amusement.
