ALICJA KWADE “space shifters”

SOUTHBANK CENTRE

 

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Alicja Kwade approaches the physical world and our visual relationship to it with a scientist’s mindset, pondering questions of gravity, astronomy, infinity, relativity, and their effect on society. She has written “I attempt to acknowledge nothingness as real”.

Weltenlinie (2017) is the most ambitious of a series of Works by Kwade that divide the space-physically and perceptually using steel frames and polished double-sided mirrors. Its black metal supports are constructed with blocky proportions that recall modernist architectural forms: on first impression the work appears to be a frame structure surrounded by sculptural objects; the mirrors only gradually reveal themselves.

 

Kwade’s careful positioning of “twins” for the objects – differentiated by material or height – means that as the viewer walks round the space, things behave in unexpected ways. At times the mirrors seem to be rendered superfluous, their reactive function appropriated by a physical twin; at other moments a reflect object appears to transform from one material into another – imbuing the viewer’s own movement with alchemical power. The frames perform both as Windows to an alternative, through-the-looking-glass version of reality, and as portraits in which the viewer encounters an image of themselves positioned within the work.

 

This exhibition was important to me, just beginning with the title, very literal, space shifters, we are able to comprehend how this exhibition transforms the space, it is focused on artworks that transforms our experience of the architecture around them. This is obviously very related to site specific art. Which is something that I take seriously and try to transport to my work. The meaning of installation, and how a piece can change and be read differently according to the way we install it.

 

Alicja piece in this exhibition was fascinating to me, and an experience that I will never forget. Want I really admire in this work, is how she plays with the viewer, using the materials to manipulate us, the viewer needs time to understand want are the materials and is obligated to get a better look, forget the preconceived ideas.