Klara Lidén: Auf jeden Fall Exhibition at Secession Vienna, Featuring Videos and Sculptural Art

This exhibition by Klara Lidén features videos of new performative actions integrated into a custom-designed sculptural display. The works reflect on the prevailing climate of conformity and social coldness, offering ideas for alternative approaches to societal constraints.

Klara Lidén, born in Stockholm in 1979 and based in Berlin, works with the urban space, its infrastructure, and social fabric, as well as her own physical presence within it. For her sculptural objects, installations, and spontaneous performative interventions, Lidén utilizes a wide array of materials from the urban inventory, such as trash cans, ATMs, signs, construction fences, and billboards. The urban environment and her own body serve as readily available resources. Lidén's work addresses the pervasiveness of normative rules and conventions in society, consistently highlighting opportunities for subtle yet decisive deviation from the norm, thus suggesting liberation and the overcoming of restrictive limitations. In her exhibition 'Auf jeden Fall' (At Any Rate), Klara Lidén embeds videos of four new performative actions within a sculptural display specifically designed and produced on-site for the exhibition. The installation reflects the current prevalent climate of conformity and social coldness in (Western) politics and society, while also offering ideas for an alternative and mindful use of available resources. The inventory, such as lamps crafted from plastic canisters and used construction fences covered with tarpaulins that function as video screens and room dividers, appears improvised and makeshift. The black unique prints in used metal frames, created with tools like fluorescent tubes, tarpaulins, construction fence netting, or a bicycle tire, exhibit a similar language. The provisional, minimalist aesthetic of the installation testifies to an appreciation for the openness and potential beauty of the imperfect. The ambiance simultaneously mirrors the appeal and challenge of the improvisational, raw, and non-conformist working method—a method that encourages thinking beyond social conformity and complacency by utilizing and skillfully repurposing available means and materials. The projected videos of Lidén's performative interventions in Berlin, New York, and Vienna demonstrate the possibilities and potential of unexpected and unconventional actions, while the sparse settings of the videos and their cool, reserved color palette reflect the growing indifference and coldness in today's society. The black-and-white video 'Karl Zwei Drei,' presented in the first exhibition space, was filmed in early 2019 on a flat roof. A 360° camera pan offers a panoramic view of Berlin's metropolitan area, a pale city view seamlessly merging with the background of a somber gray sky. During the calm camera movement, Lidén's artist friend Karl Holmqvist is heard counting first in English, then in German: 1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2-3, ...—a simple but monotonously repeating number pattern that alludes to the network of regulations and agreements governing urban coexistence. In contrast, Holmqvist's presence, as he hops from one foot to the other while reciting his chant, is characterized by an almost liberating playfulness. The short clip 'Out to Lunch' (2018) shows a single scene: in a spotlessly white, completely neutral, and impersonal kitchenette, radiating cool sterility, the refrigerator door suddenly opens, and the artist emerges quite naturally. Paradoxically, in this scene of escape, the only sign of warmth is the warm white light inside the refrigerator. 'Grounding' was filmed by Klara Lidén in Lower Manhattan in 2018, on the occasion of her exhibition at Reena Spaulings. The video documents the artist spontaneously walking through New York's financial district, the symbol of power and control. Echoing the choreography of Massive Attack's 1991 cult hit 'Unfinished Sympathy' music video, the steadycam follows the artist as she passes landmarks like the New York Stock Exchange, stumbling multiple times quite seriously. The very first scene makes it unmistakably clear what this is about: as the artist emerges from a subway station onto the street, she suddenly collapses right in front of a poster with the inscription 'The Money. The Power. The History.'—only to immediately continue her forward momentum, driven by the beat of the soundtrack by Åskar Brickman. This choreography of flowing into walking and falling, falling back into the gait, stumbling, struggling, and striving forward again demonstrates the fragility and vulnerability of the individual in the face of the overwhelming power of international corporations and their capitalist principles. The determination with which the artist continues her path and pursues her goal after each fall—at any rate—and refuses to give up or be defeated, leaves a lasting impression. Lidén's latest work, 'A Walk in the Park' (2019), was conceived as a continuation of 'Grounding' and filmed concurrently with the setup of her exhibition at the Secession. A collage of short episodes shows the artist on a tour around Vienna's city center. Set to the same soundtrack as the New York version, she strolls past the magnificent buildings and parks of the Vienna Ringstrasse, carrying one of those construction fences with a white tarpaulin that serve as projection screens in the exhibition. Lidén is almost entirely obscured by the fence. Only her feet, always in motion, peek out from underneath. The tarpaulin attached to the fence resembles a blank white canvas or a banner. It moves almost filling the frame, obscuring the view of the magnificent architecture embodying power and wealth. Klara Lidén has created an extensive body of sculptural works and installations, as well as performative actions and videos, since the early 2000s. With her interventions and radical energy, the artist consciously disrupts social conventions to question everyday actions, undermine the usual coexistence, and bring suppressed aggression and potential resistance to the fore. Her actions, which could be described as a form of creative vandalism, appropriation, and repurposing, often initially remain anonymous and hidden.

Information regarding tickets can be found via a provided link. Visitors are directed to an external ticketing platform for purchase. General opening hours are mentioned as 'open today' and detailed as Tuesday-Sunday, 10 AM - 6 PM. The Beethoven Frieze is mentioned as a separate permanent display. The exhibition is presented by the Secession, Vereinigung bildender Künstler\*innen Wiener Secession, located at Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna.