Alicja Kwade's First Kamel Mennour Show Explores Gegenwartsdauer

Alicja Kwade presented her first exhibition at Galerie Kamel Mennour in Paris from April 3 to May 8, 2013. The show, titled 'Gegenwartsdauer' (roughly 'duration of the instant' or 'persistence of the instant'), featured a sequence of works ranging from discreet to spectacular, all revolving around the concept of time's instantaneous and dilated perspectives. Kwade, fascinated by antique objects and their connections to collective or individual history, incorporated items sourced from the internet or antique dealers: small porcelain sculptures, furniture, decorative objects, mirrors, and 'fossilized' palm trees, combined with contemporary industrial materials, raw materials, and precious metals like gold. These elements form vanities that testify to the passage of time, evoking the German term 'Vergänglichkeit' (transience). The works skillfully blend preciousness with post-minimalist roughness, discursive opacity with narrative sense.