Alicja Kwade is known internationally for sculpture, expansive public installation, film, photography and works on paper that challenge scientific and philosophical concepts by dismantling the boundaries of perception. Her distinctive artistic language involves reflection, repetition, and the deconstruction and reconstruction of everyday objects and natural materials in an effort to explore the essence of our reality and to examine social structures. Often veering towards the absurd and transforming commonly accepted assumptions into open-ended questions, her poetic and mesmerizing oeuvre disrupts familiar systems and searches for new explanations to comprehend our world.
Kwade has exhibited widely at institutions including Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk; Whitechapel Gallery, London; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin; Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo; and Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich. Over the past years, she has increasingly worked in the public realm, creating vast installations that respond to the architecture and the natural phenomena of various sites. In 2019, Kwade was commissioned to create a monumental installation for the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Two sculptures made of steel and enormous spherical rocks to evoke a solar system settled temporarily above Manhattan’s skyline. For her 2022 installation Au Cours Des Mondes on Place Vendôme in Paris the artist set a dialogue between natural stone globes affixed to endless concrete stairs and a set of natural stone spheres. Both works explore our place in the world, underlying mechanisms of power and our relationship to knowledge thereof. Other notable installations include a 2022 participation at Desert X AlUla and an acclaimed presentation at the 57th Venice Biennale Viva Arte Viva in 2017.
Her works are part of numerous public collections, such as the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington; LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; Mudam - Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg; and mumok - Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna.
2024 | Blue Days Dust, Mennour, Paris, France |
2023 | In Agnosie, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany |
2022 | Pretty Pity, ARCA Wynwood, Public Commission, Miami, USA |
2021 | Sometimes I Prefer to Sit on a Chair on the Earth, KÖNIG Galerie, Seoul, South Korea |
2020 | Kausalkonsequenz, Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany |
2019 | In Between Glances, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA, USA |
2018 | GLANCES, Blueproject Foundation, Barcelona, Spain |
2017 | ReReason , YUZ Museum, Shanghai, China |
2016 | In Aporie, Kamel Mennour, Paris, France |
2015 | Nach Osten, TRAFO Centre for Contemporary Art, Szczecin, Poland |
2014 | Warten auf Gegenwart, Kunstmuseum | Kunstverein St. Gallen, Switzerland |
2013 | Solid Stars and other Conditions, i8 Gallery, Reykjavik, Iceland |
2012 | The heavy weight of light, Harris Lieberman, New York, USA |
2011 | Sensor – Zeitraum für junge Positionen, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany |
2010 | Probleme massereicher Körper, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany |
2009 | Grenzfälle fundamentaler Theorien, KÖNIG Galerie, Berlin, Germany |
2008 | Von Explosionen zu Ikonen, Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, Germany |
2007 | Junge Sterne Rauchen, Galerie Lena Brüning, Berlin, Germany |
2006 | Maryon Park, Galerie Bernd Kugler, Innsbruck, Austria |
2005 | Andernfalls ist es nur eine Schwingung des Äthers, Glue, Berlin |
2004 | Alicja Kwade with Gregor Hildebrandt, Reuter, Dresden, Germany |
2003 | Stand by, Taubenstr. 13, St. Pauli, Hamburg, Germany |
2024 | Layers, Loops, Lines, Borås Art Biennale, Borås, Sweden |
2023 | The Pista 500, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, Italy |
2022 | Different than it seems / Anders als es scheint, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Recklinghausen, Germany |
2021 | Colección Jumex: Ambient Temperature; Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico |
2020 | NGV Triennial 2020, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia |
2019 | Setouchi Triennale 2019, Honjima, Japan |
2018 | 1st Thailand Biennale: Edge of the Wonderland, Krabi, Thailand |
2017 | Perception is Reality - Über die Abbildung von Wirklichkeit und Virtuellen Welten, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany |
2016 | Forming in the pupil of an eye, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India |
2015 | On Curbstone Jewels and Cobblestones, Daimler Contemporary Berlin & Stuttgart, Germany |
2014 | Hausbesetzung, Nassauischer Kunstverband, Wiesbaden, Germany |
2013 | Lightness of Being, Public Art Fund, City Hall Park, New York City, NY, USA |
2012 | When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco, CA, USA |
2011 | Berlin 2000 – 2011 Playing among the ruins, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan |
2010 | Dorothea von Stetten-Kunstpreis, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany |
2009 | Kunst zwischen Spurensuche und Utopie, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany |
2008 | Endless Sphere, Center of Contemporary Art, Kiev, Ukraine |
2007 | Kunstpreis Junger Westen für Skulptur, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Recklinghausen, Germany |
2006 | Lichtwerke aus der Sammlung, MUMOK, Vienna, Austria |
2005 | The other sight, Künstlerhaus Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany |
Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany
Boros Collection, Berlin, Germany
Burger Collection, Hong Kong, China
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Daimler Art Collection, Stuttgart, Germany
DD Collection, Halandri, Greece
DekaBank Kunstsammlung des 21. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Dib Bangkok Museum of Contemporary Art, Bangkok, Thailand
Domus Collection, Beijing, China
European Patent Office, Munich, Germany
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy
Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX, USA
GreyChurch Collection and Project Space, Vancouver, Canada
HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland
HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Denmark
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC, USA
Isabel and Agustín Coppel Collection, Mexico City, Mexico
K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong
KAI 10 | ARTHENA FOUNDATION, Dusseldorf, Germany
Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany
Kunsthalle Praha, Prague, Czech Republic
Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Recklinghausen, Germany
Kunstmuseum Sankt Gallen, Sankt Gallen, Switzerland
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, Germany
LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
Lubeznik Center for the arts, Michigan City, IN, USA
MACBA Collection, Barcelona, Spain
MATE - Mario Testino Museum, Barranco, Peru
MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA, USA
MONA – Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Mudam – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
mumok – Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, Austria
Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany
Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland
Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, The Netherlands
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas USA
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany
Olbricht Collection, Berlin, Germany
Reykjavik Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland
Saastamoinen Foundation, Helsinki, Finland
SAHA Association, Istanbul, Turkey
Sammlung Andra Lauffs-Wegner, Bad Honnef, Germany
Sammlung Fiede, Aschaffenburg, Germany
Sammlung Grässlin, Sankt Georgen, Germany
Sammlung Haus N, Kiel, Germany
Sammlung Philara, Dusseldorf, Germany
Sammlung Pohl, Marburg, Germany
Sammlung Wemhöner, Herford, Germany
Sammlung Würth, Schwäbisch Hall, Germany
Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany
Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, USA
The Ekard Collection, Wassenaar, The Netherlands
The Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, Turkey
Towner Eastbourne, Eastbourne, UK
Tumurun Museum, Surakarta, Indonesia
Ulsan Art Museum, Ulsan, South Korea
Vehbi Koç, Foundation, Istanbul, Turkey
Wrocław Contemporary Museum, Wrocław, Poland
Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China
Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK