Untitled, 2015 (asphalt)
installation view at Wiels, Brussels

image courtesy Wiels, Brussels

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The installation view presented above is a glimpse into the solo exhibition of KLARA LIDÉN that is currently on view at Wiels in Brussels.

This new work – which seems to be not yet titled – consists of a series of asphalt pieces that the artist piled up like stacks of stones recalling those made by ‘people to mark a footpath or a sacred site’. Nevertheless this apparent natural harmony is quickly balanced by the strong, heavy, dark and smell qualities of the tarmac that the artist salvaged from a recycling plant. If the viewer is at first seduced by the esthetics, he/she only later becomes aware of the gesture which generated the work; an act of vandalism or at least a moment of violence.

KLARA LIDÉN’s sculptural viewpoint thanks to her use of ‘recuperated materials’, carries within the notion of the inexorable march of time, of transformation and degradation. This piece, as much as her previous works, is all about the experimentation devoid of concessions or illusions. Eventually the whole exhibition in the Belgian institution which features mostly past works, seems to be on the verge of the ruins, vestiges of a past and unique memories of vanished lives.

➝ Battement Battu by KLARA LIDÉN is on view at Wiels, Brussels until January 10, 2016.

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