Alicja Kwade

Alicja Kwade (*1979, Katowice, PL) reveals an almost abstract image depicting clusters of light spots that are denser in some places than in others. Occasionally, we can divine objects; here, we can make out a digital time reading. The photograph belongs to a series of images that Kwade shot in her darkened flat. The images depict the light signals emitted by electrical appliances in standby mode. Kwade thus turns the spotlight on the mundane objects that accompany us through our daily lives without our noticing. Despite their technical content, the photographic compositions capturing this prosaic subject-matter have a pictorial and poetic, sometimes even dramatic resonance: deprived of their actual function, the lowly appliances appear to embark on a self-determined dialogue with each other beyond the realms of their functionality. The works are therefore representative of the themes that interest Alicja Kwade, who, using media as disparate as photography and installation, frequently asks subtle questions about visibility and invisibility and socially agreed valuations and valuation conventions.