ALICJA KWADE
LES SIÈGES DES MONDES
CHRISTOPHER MERIAN FOUNDATION GARDEN, BASEL, SWITZERLAND13 JUNE – 19 JUNE 2022
Parcours: An itinerary through Basel’s Old TownExpanding Art Basel’s reach through the city’s old town with a temporary display of public art, Parcours invites artists and visitors to engage with Basel’s 1000-year-old urban and architectonic heritage.
While apparently alluding to the number of planets in our solar system, the eight perfectly round stone spheres represent any possible planet. Weighing between 75 and 290 kg, the evidently hefty celestial bodies are accompanied by equally substantial cast bronze chairs in, on and around which they are placed. For Kwade, the vastness of the universe represents the greatest possible abstraction of scale from which smaller units can be derived until we arrive at the personal level of the individiual, treating the planetary coordinates as a superordinate system of our world. The work references our struggle to comprehend temporality outside of our own experience: «Stones are compressed time,» she once said. The artist has long engaged in questions of how human experience is shaped by our own conventions and systems, creating a loop of limited perception. Les Sièges des Mondes critically examines the position of man as supposed ruler of the world, reminiscent of a throne on which we are imprisoned, from which we cannot hear ourselves.
Alicja Kwade works in sculpture, public installations, video and photography. Her diverse practice revolves around applying a very scientific approach for deeply philosophical questions of space and time. An ongoing focus are the social conventions and systems that shape our perception of reality.© Courtesy of Art Basel