Artists

Klara Lidén Born in 1979 in Stockholm, Sweden | Lives and works in Berlin

Portrait

Self Portrait with Keys to the City, 2005

Self Portrait with Keys to the City, 2005

At the center of Klara Lidén’s work is the acting, thinking body and its ways of moving and acting in space. In many of her short video films, she herself is in front of the camera performing events in urban settings or apartments.

These videos are marked by a do-it-yourself aesthetic and are filmed with a standard commercial camera without special lighting or props. Neither complicated editing techniques nor digital processing are used. The focus is on the action and the location. InParalyzed(2003), for example, Lidén steps out of a blank-faced crowd of passengers in a subway and begins to perform a wild dance during which she half-way undresses, simultaneously breaking several behavioral conventions in public space. Lidén continually re-negotiates the relationship between body and space also in her spatial installative works when she conquers, fills up, blocks and contests the exhibition space.

Her interventions are reminiscent of the works of Bruce Nauman in their focus on rhythm and gestures as physical evolvements in time and space. Not least of all, Lidén’s work has a political dimension in her continual addressing of the passive tolerance of an increasingly alienated environment and economic interests taking precedence over one’s own actions and living space.

Education

2004-2007 University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Konstfack/MFA, Stockholm
2003 Universität der Künste, Berlin
2000-2004 School of Architecture, Royal School of Technology, Stockholm

Awards

2011 Nominiert für den Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst, Berlin
2010 Kunstpreis blauorange
2009 Stipendium Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York

Solo exhibitions (selection)

2012 Bodies of Society, New Museum, New York
2011 Moderna Museet, Stockholm
2010 Serpentine Gallery, London
Always be Elsewhere, Jeu de Paume, Paris
2009 Never Come Back, Kunsthalle Friedricanum, Kassel
Projects 89, Museum of Modern Art, New York
2007 Unheimliche Maneuver, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
2005 Dr. 3000, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York

Group exhibitions (selection)

2011 Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst 2011, Nationalgalerie Berlin
54th International Art Exhibition ILLUMInations, Venice Biennale
2009 Non-Solo, Non-Group Show, Kunsthalle Zürich