Alicja Kwade

Few positions in art currently attract more attention than the works of the young sculptor Alicja Kwade (b. Katowice, 1979; lives and works in Berlin). They show how easy it would be to lift our construction of reality off its hinges. In her installations, objects, and photographs, experiments in philosophical thought take concrete shape, reminding us that we cannot understand everything. Both social conventions and the laws of physics are at stake. Alicja Kwade's discreet interventions in scenes of everyday life can invert gravity, transmute pebbles into jewels, and even open doors to parallel worlds. She tries to render the invisible visible, to comprehend the unimaginable. To this end, the artist creates sometimes poetic, sometimes absurd forms in a world otherwise determined by reason.

The texts in this book are likewise unusual: in addition to an introduction by the art historian Eveline Suter, it includes an essay by Alicja Kwade's mother, the cultural scientist Elisabeth Kwade, about why artists are different, and the well-known furniture maker and author Rafael Horzon contributes a jester's play.