Materia Prima

Few artistic positions are currently receiving comparable attention as the works of the young sculptor Alicja Kwade (born in Katowice in 1979, lives and works in Berlin). These show how easily our constructed reality could be unhinged. Philosophical mind games take shape in installations, objects and photography, reminding us that we cannot understand everything. It is as much about social conventions as it is about physical laws. Alicja Kwade's discreet interventions in everyday things can reverse gravity, transform pebbles into jewels, and even open up parallel worlds. She tries to make the invisible visible, to comprehend the unimaginable. To do this, the artist forms sometimes poetic, sometimes absurd shapes in an otherwise rationally determined world. The texts in this book are also extraordinary: in addition to an introduction by art historian Eveline Suter, Alicja Kwade's mother, the literary and cultural scholar Elisabeth Kwade, writes a text on why artists are different, and the well-known furniture maker and author Rafael Horzon writes a prankster piece.