Rels

Firestorm Foundation acquired Rels at the exhibition Mentors (CFHILL, Stockholm, 3 December 2021 - 7 January 2022). The group exhibition, curated by Sandra Weil (art curator living in Tel Aviv who promotes cultural exchange Sweden-Israel and is active in the Robert Weil Family Foundation’s work to defend and nurture democratic society), brought together international contemporary artists like Barbara Kruger (U.S.A., born 1945), Olafur Eliasson (Denmark, born 1967), Rithika Merchant (India, born 1986) and Klara Lidén.

In the exhibition catalogue Saskia Neuman (Swedish writer and curator, regular contributor to publications such as Vogue and Artlover, in addition to curating solo exhibitions. Formerly the director of the Market Art Fair, Stockholm and director of the Absolute Art Award) wrote the following about Klara Lidén:

A plastic, polyethylene roadside divider used to shepherd pedestrians and/or vehicles through traffic holds symbolic value, if we, as the viewer choose to interact with the divider. Projecting meaning and deference onto an object, we most likely see daily, by engaging with it in a gallery space. The intention is not to question the object’s value as art, however by attempting to fathom what artist Klara Lidén is communicating, we are posed with the question of the artwork’s meaning, and by proxy the artist’s intention. Is the sculpture, Rels, 2021, supposed to invoke a certain sense of safety and calm, knowing that this barrier is here to protect us from harm, or does it aim to do the opposite? Obstruct and deter us from access, creating clear division, further cementing the concept of a, ‘us versus them’ mentality in society? […] Perhaps it’s this gift of seamless clarity through a very diffused gaze of trying to figure out what the artist’s work means we are introduced to a very certain artistic voice, that is constantly questioning the status quo in art, as well as in human nature.

It is safe to say that Klara Lidén ‘is constantly questioning the status quo in art, as well as in human nature’. (Re-)using common materials which can be salvaged from urban space, or sourced from outmoded stock, Lidén’s practice involves a notion of hands-on recycling. This practice is a contemporary continuation of the art historical discipline of working with found objects.

A found object (a phrase borrowed from the French objet trouvé), or found art, is art created from undisguised, but often modified, items or products that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already have a non-art function. Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973) first publicly utilized the idea when he pasted a printed image of chair caning onto his painting Still Life with Chair Caning (1912, oil and printed oilcloth on canvas edged with rope, 29 x 37 cm, Musée Picasso, Paris). Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968) is thought to have perfected the concept several years later when he made a series of readymades, consisting of completely unaltered everyday objects selected by Duchamp and designated as art. The most famous example is Fountain (1917), a standard urinal purchased from a hardware store and displayed on a pedestal, resting on its back. Seventeen authorised versions of Fountain have been created, one of which is in the collections of the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (1917/1963, porcelain, 33 x 42 x 52 cm). In its strictest sense the term ‘readymade’ is applied exclusively to works produced by Marcel Duchamp, who borrowed the term from the clothing industry (French: prêt-à-porter, lit. ‘ready-to-wear’) while living in New York; and especially to works dating from 1913 to 1921.

Found objects derive their identity as art from the designation placed upon them by the artist and from the social history that comes with the object. This may be indicated by either its anonymous wear and tear, as in collages of Kurt Schwitters (1887 -1948) or by its recognsability as a consumer icon, as in the sculptures of Haim Steinbach (born 1944). The context into which it is placed is also a highly relevant factor. The idea of dignifying commonplace objects in this way was originally a shocking challenge to the accepted distinction between what was considered art as opposed to not art. Although it may now be accepted in the art world as a viable practice, it continues to arouse questioning, as with the Tate Gallery’s Turner Prize exhibition of Dame Tracey Emin’s (born 1963) My Bed (1998, installation; mattress, linens, pillows and various objects, 79 x 211 x 234 cm), which consisted literally of a transposition of her unmade and disheveled bed, surrounded by shed clothing and other bedroom detritus, directly from her bedroom to the Tate. In this sense the artist gives the audience time and a stage to contemplate an object. As such, found objects can prompt philosophical reflection in the observer.

As an art form, found objects tend to include the artist’s output—at the very least an idea about it, i.e. the artist’s designation of the object as art—which is nearly always reinforced with a title. There is usually some degree of modification of the found object, although not always to the extent that it cannot be recognised, as is the case with readymades. Recent critical theory, however, would argue that the mere designation and relocation of any object, readymades included, constitutes a modification of the object because it changes our perception of its utility, its lifespan, or its status.

Provenance

CFHILL, Stockholm, Mentors, 3 December 2021 - 7 January 2022.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired at the above).