PARIS+ PAR ART BASEL / SITES
JARDIN DES TUILERIES
19.10.-23.10.2022
NINA BEIER
In collaboration with CROY NIELSEN
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"Contrasts and ruptures characterize Nina Beier's work. The artist digs into cultural codes to find things that are loaded with particularly problematic and layered stories, things that have undergone a transformation in terms of their intention, production, distribution, trading and use. Particularly the objects that represent systems that have collapsed, are autopsied, exposing the implicit economical and interpersonal power structures they represent. In doing so, she poses complex questions about the value and meaning of objects.
Carved in stone and found at the boundary of a property, guardian lions are a symbol of territoriality and authority, a symbol of power that cements the threshold or boundary between owner and public, between inside and outside and mainly maybe a testament to the human illusion of dominance over nature.
The installation plays with what happens when a guardian lion leaves it's designated spot at the entrance to a building. When it is detached from the status of architecture and set free from the coupledom, the lions are no longer an image of the domesticated, no longer part of an ornamentation, but come across animated as a sculptural depiction of a wild lion pride.
The marble lion sculpture is the product of a long and extensive cultural history. It has traveled over the millennia from Greece to India to China and on to Italy, changing along the way, both in form and meaning. In one place, lions represent protection, in another, power and prestige. Today, the lion is primarily a symbol of globalization, as most of its kind is produced in China. Beier's manipulations, simple at first glance, show the opposing structures and the complexity of the things we surround ourselves with."
Vanessa Boni
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Nina Beier (b. 1975, Aarhus, Denmark) lives and works in Copenhagen. Recent solo exhibitions include "Housebroken", Kunsthal Gent, Belgium, "European Interiors", Spike Island, Bristol, UK; "Cash for Gold" at Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany; "Nina Beier" at Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania, amongst others. Her work has been included in group shows at Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin; Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; CCA Wattis, San Francisco; Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin.
Beier's sculpture "Women & Children"- a fountain composed of bronze sculptures weeping from their eyes- is currently on view at The High Line in New York as a part of their 2022 commission series.
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Nina Beier
Guardians
2022
Four marble lions, bird seeds
Dimensions variable
Unique / SONB-0310
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Photography: Dawn Blackman
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