NINA BEIER: "Auto"

NINA BEIER
"AUTO"
08.03.-08.09.20224 / CAPC MUSÉE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN, BORDEAUX

-----

From March to September 2024, Danish artist Nina Beier – of whom a number of works are part of the Capc collection – has been invited to take over the nave for a mid-career retrospective, presented jointly at the Capc and Kiasma (Helsinski, Finland).

Marble lions, remote-controlled luxury cars, elephant slides, Royal Chinese porcelain knock-offs: using objects gleaned from online platforms and secondhand shops, Nina Beier uses juxtapositions and misappropriations to reveal the mutations and paradoxes of our cultural archetypes. For over 15 years, the artist has been exploring the underlying narratives contained in the generic objects populating our daily lives, some of which we produce to consume and then throw away.

In Nina Beier’s work, the deconstruction of existing value systems is central. The artist overturns established hierarchies (between the precious and the banal, the authentic and the counterfeit) and offers a critique of our contemporary world. Her sculptures fall, break and spill out, participating in a tragedy of statuary and monument.

Gender and class relations, as well as colonial and social history feed all of Nina Beier's work. Using materials for their evocative powers - flirting with clichés, which she uses deliberately - we come across palm leaves, wigs, moustaches and Persian carpets.

Nina Beier’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions throughout the world, in Europe, the United States and Asia. Recent examples include Art Sonje in Seoul (2023); Haus am Waldsee in Berlin (2023); the Highline in New York (2022); Rønnebæksholm in Denmark (2021) and Spike Island in Bristol (2018). In France, her work attracted attention at the 16th Lyon Biennial «manifesto of fragility» (2022). In 2024, in addition to her exhibitions at Capc and Kiasma, she will be exhibited at the Tamayo Museum, Mexico.

Curators: Sandra Patron and Cédric Fauq

Photography Arthur Péquin