![\"Alicja](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Alicja-Kwade.-Image-by-Joseph-Wolfgang-Ohlert-796x600.jpg\")
Alicja Kwade. Image by Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Alicja Kwade. Image by Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the empty space in between that interests me the most\u201d – Kwade<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a very patient person \u2013 I prefer a \u2018no\u2019 to a \u2018maybe\u2019\u201d – Kwade<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n A look inside the Berlin-based artist’s studio<\/p>","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":38340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[2953,34,5993,5994,5995,12,1498,2290,5996,5997,5998],"class_list":["post-38123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-alicja-kwade","tag-berlin","tag-boros-collection","tag-dessen-anwesenheit-erwartet-wurde","tag-etwas-abwesendes","tag-hamburger-bahnhof","tag-johann-konig","tag-joseph-wolfgang-ohlert","tag-kamel-mennour","tag-kunsthalle-schirn","tag-universitat-der-kunste"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThis week Alicja Kwade<\/a> will exhibit\u00a0her newest installation “Medium Median” at London’s Whitechapel Gallery<\/a>. Drawing inspiration from NASA’s data regarding extrasolar meteors, the work presents this astronomical information and references\u00a0the events leading up to the extinction of dinosaurs. As the artist prepares for opening night, we look back at our 2015 studio visit with the Berlin-based creative, taken from SLEEK issue 46<\/a>.<\/em>
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\n\u201cIn Berlin it\u2019s quite easy to get comfy,\u201d Alicja Kwade<\/a> says as we enter the cavernous atrium of her studio. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s a bit dangerous.\u201d
\nYet, after over a decade in Berlin, Kwade shows no signs of slowing down. The daughter of a gallerist and a professor of cultural studies, at 19 she decided to pursue art when she moved from Hannover to Berlin to attend the acclaimed Universit\u00e4t der K\u00fcnste. A mainstay in Berlin\u2019s scene since her breakthrough exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art<\/a> in 2008, Kwade recently added 303 Gallery in New York to the growing list of institutions backing her ongoing practice, including Berlin\u2019s Johann K\u00f6nig gallery, kamel mennour in Paris, Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt and the Boros Collection.
\nWith a wide array of power tools and scale-models of her various galleries made from foamcore, Kwade\u2019s studio is more of a research lab than a workshop. For example, her most recent solo show \u201cEtwas Abwesendes, dessen Anwesenheit erwartet wurde\u201d (Something absent, whose presence was expected) featured two-tonne slabs of Greek marble that stood eight-heads high and were later systematically shattered by the gallery\u2019s local stonemason, and a set of styrofoam body doubles, layered under cardboard scraps and bubble wrap. Elsewhere, her obsessions also lean toward the intersection of science and philosophy, and she has recently found herself fascinated with subatomic matter.
\n <\/p>\n![\"Alicja](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Alicja-Kwade.-Image-by-Joseph-Wolfgang-Ohlert_-900x597.jpg\")
Alicja Kwade. Image by Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s the empty space in between that interests me the most,\u201d she says with a focused, unrelenting cadence. \u201cIt begins in the atom \u2013 there\u2019s the electron flying around and there\u2019s the inner nucleus, but there is always this emptiness. Nobody knows what it is. That\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to circle around.\u201d
\nKwade is unabashed in the scope and scale of her work, and her experimentation is limited only by what she can convince others to do for her: \u201cI\u2019m not a big customer; I\u2019m not ordering two hundred units of the same thing. But it\u2019s much easier now as I\u2019m working with eight manufacturers. They know me; they know the special things I care about.\u201d
\nHer massive studio space is ripe with her spoils that are present alongside antique treasures she found while trawling flea markets and the internet. Bent mirrors wait on the floor to be rebuffed after being shipped around the world; elsewhere, a tall wooden abacus waits in turn to find a way into one of Kwade\u2019s projects. Though there\u2019s a line of collectors forming for each of her new pieces, there\u2019s a longer line of artefacts waiting to be included in her work: posted beside her coffee table is a floodlight that has been stuck in standby for nearly a decade.
\n <\/p>\n![\"Alicja](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Alicja-Kwade.-Image-by-Joseph-Wolfgang-Ohlert__--793x600.jpg\")
Alicja Kwade. Image by Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert and from koeniggalerie.com<\/p>\n
\nEven with three solo shows under her belt already in 2015 \u2013 in addition to a major upcoming show in Mannheim \u2013 Kwade is noticeably cool and relaxed during Sleek\u2019s visit. Indeed, her rapid-fire speech is matched only by her drive for progress. She laughs decisively: \u201cI\u2019m not a very patient person \u2013 I prefer a \u2018no\u2019 to a \u2018maybe\u2019\u201d.
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\n\u201cMedium Median<\/a>” by Alicja Kwade is on display at London’s Whitechapel Gallery from 28 September until 25\u00a0June 2017<\/strong> \nFotografie von\u00a0Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert<\/a><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"