Alicja KwadeDegree of Certainty–Haus Esters
The Berlin based artist Alicja Kwade (b. 1979 Katowice, Poland) has given her exhibition at Museum Haus Esters the title Degree of Certainty, and with that alluded in fact to the uncertainty that shapes our lives despite all the probabilities and prognoses we have. With seven works all made specially for the presentation and one already in existence Kwade has created a network that is as complex as it is transparent, in which time, economic processes and cosmological phenomena are brought into relation with one another. For this the artist has transformed everyday materials such as lamps, clocks, small porcelain figures and even simple materials by a few small adjustments to produce powerful, symbolic images. The viewer encounters these familiar objects with a mixture of wonder and astonishment. And the objects invite us to test the reliability of our notions regarding time, values, and the connections in nature.
Truster 7 consists of seven Kaiser Idell lamps which the Bauhaus designer Christian Dell produced in the 1930s, and which are shown performing a dignified bow. The multiplication and staggering of the one and the same lamp recalls a film sequence and grants an image of time by means of a static object.
The floor piece 02.07.2013 from 2013, which in its formal rigour is reminiscent of the art of the minimalists, consists of eight industrial metals: gold, silver, tin, nickel, copper, lead, zinc and aluminium. The work renders an abstract, flexible relationship between different values perceptible: the value of eight gram gold, as noted on the stock exchange on 2nd July 2013, in relationship to the other seven metals.
In addition, with her spectacular outdoor piece Alicja Kwade continues the tradition in Krefeld of site-specific installations. A stream of 1417 stones rolls from the rear of the garden down to Haus Esters and penetrates the frame of the building. These boulders, of which the largest weigh up to three to five tons, grow smaller the closer they are to the house. Their number corresponds to the 1417 asteroids that circle close to the earth, and that have been deemed a threat by NASA. This estimate of the asteroids is based on the calculations done on their orbits. Since their trajectories may be altered by unforeseen events, both the number of the asteroids and the probability of their colliding with the Earth is constantly updated. Set in the garden at Haus Esters, they describe quite impressively the narrow extent of our certainty.
The catalogue will appear during the course of the exhibition (in all likelihood mid-November 2013) and will document the entire presentation; with texts by Vanessa Joan Müller, Robin Schuldenfrei, and Sylvia Martin.
On 21 November 2013 there will be a discussion with Alicja Kwade at 7:30 p.m. in Museum Haus Esters.