Klara Lidén

Galerie Neu, Berlin
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

The Hague, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Transforming the Known, 2013

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the yellow is brighter and more vibrant in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. All irregularities are in keeping with the artist's choice of found materials and working process.
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In her multifaceted practice Klara Lidén engages with almost everything and anything around herself – from the architectural space she intervenes in, to materials and objects that have either been discarded or that are so part of the urban landscape they would usually go unnoticed. In her quasi anarchic reinterpretation of space and matter, Lidén offers a fresh take on the decades-long tradition of elevating everyday objects into the realm of art, re-purposing their functions and meanings to both people and the environments they find themselves in.

Lidén studied architecture in Stockholm – which gave her a particular sensibility towards her spatial surroundings. After spending a year studying at the Universität der Kunst in Berlin, however, she decided to focus entirely on art. Throughout her acclaimed career Lidén has actively engaged with the cities she has lived and worked in; her video Paralyzed from 2003 shows her dancing in the underground in Stockholm, swinging herself into and out of the passenger seats while astonished commuters look at her. She created a bunker-like hidden space along the banks of the river Spree in Berlin where anyone could go and shelter themselves; and in her 2008 video Myth of Progress (Moonwalk) she glides backwards à la Michael Jackson through the streets of Manhattan. An underlying thread of thought in Lidén’s performances and interventions is the artist’s subtle yet ingenious revelation of the political and ideological frameworks that shape our everyday lives. Through architecture and urban planning – the ways in which cities are built – our social behaviour is framed or moulded and it is precisely these conventions that the artist explores in her work.

In her unique inquiry of the urban landscape and our human response to it, Lidén has often used discarded items that she finds on the streets. The artist has explained how “use, most of the time, means diverting materials or spaces from their prescribed functions, inventing ways of making things improper again…building is also un-building, re-cycling or improvising new uses for what’s already been set up” (Klara Lidén quoted in: Exhibition Catalogue, Dublin, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Klara Liden: The Myth of Progress, 2013-14, n.p.). This was the case for her show Projects 89 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York where she erected a sculptural installation made of scaffolding and an accumulation of cardboard and other abandoned materials she found around the museum’s offices and stores. Through her use of waste Lidén evidences the culture of rapid consumption and disposal we live in, and questions our roles as human beings in it.

A further exploration of this continuous and accelerated culture of consumption can be found in Lidén’s poetic series of ‘Poster Paintings’ for which the artist uses layers and layers of old advertising posters she finds on the streets. Spanning almost 2 metres in width and comprising of posters that pile up to 20cm in thickness is Untitled (Poster Painting) from 2013. The stack of posters, which once advertised concerts, exhibitions or even objects for sale have been covered up by a final, white layer by the artist who in this way transforms the display nature of the simple banners and turns it into a white monochrome, bringing associations with Arte Povera and Minimalism to mind. The pasted posters, now simple mementos of the events they advertise, are in fact a compilation of the social gatherings that have happened during a particular time and in a particular place, a concealed diary of a city’s life.

Plastered together  and having weathered rain and sun throughout time, the edges of the work are crumpled and jagged, as if revelling against the glue that holds them together onto the wall. Lidén’s Untitled reminds us of the impermanence of things, how an event will be replaced – covered – by the next. We may want to try and remember what those posters stand for, what they advertise, delving into our memories to awaken past experiences, but we are prevented from doing so by the blank layer the artist added at the end. “In their blankness” the artist’s ‘Poster Paintings’ “reflect us back to where we are now (…) This is the event, and our existence here is added to Lidén’s action, as well as to the myriad past performances and events that the hidden posters hold” (Vaari Claffey, ‘Taking Form/Taking Place: Klara Lidén’s Poster Paintings’ in: Ibid., n.p.).