Alicja Kwade's Big Be-Hide is concerned with the interplay of ‘being’ and ‘hiding’. Two 'stones', made of different materials, embody the reflected form of each other's shape. They lie next to one another, separated by a two-sided mirror. A stone found in Gstaad, brought to St. Moritz, now lies on the shore of Lake Staz (Stazer See); sitting across from it on the other side of a mirror, is the same stone in reverse form and cast in aluminium. By inverse gesture, a found stone from St. Moritz was brought over the mountains to Gstaad and it is likewise placed against its mirrored aluminium counterpart. The place and the image of both natural stones are twice reflected, once by swapping the physical places of the two stones between St. Moritz and Gstaad, and twice by mirroring the image of the original object into a metallic double.
The stone and its counterpart overlap perfectly in reflection, yet uncannily. From one perspective, the mirrored glass may appear as a normal reflecting plane, bearing an unchallenged reflection of the object in its gaze. As the viewer changes perspectives, the mirror begins to deny its own reflectivity and appear as a transparent –yet transformational –window through which a natural stone looks onto its shiny metal double. Moving around the piece, the glass may gradually conceal parts of one of the objects, but in return, it will always complete what's missing by revealing its exact complement in a different material.
Elevation is conceived and produced by Luma Foundation
Echoes concept by Neville Wakefield and Olympia Scarry
@ Images Andrea Furger