Alicja Kwade y Gregor Hildebrandt

The Museo de Arte de Zapopan (MAZ) presents Beyond Behind / Atrás y más allá by Polish artist Alicja Kwade and German artist Gregor Hildebrandt, their first exhibition in Mexico. Under the curatorship of Viviana Kuri Haddad, the artists present works that transform reality: the familiar becomes strange and the complete familiar, as objects are detached from their prescribed ends and placed in new and unexpected settings.

In a spirit of reciprocal interchange, the exhibition includes painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and video from the artists’ recent production, as well as new pieces created for the museum in line with their explorations of form and subject matter. Hildebrandt has drawn on materials from the music and motion picture industries —LPs, audio tape, video cassettes—, while Kwade’s sculptural objects examine the structures of reality and our perception of time.

In the courtyards of the museum, sculptures of familiar, easily recognizable objects, such as Hildebrandt’s Hirte [Shepherd], 2023, and Kwade’s Jo's Snow, 2023, invite viewers to reevaluate their perceptions. By playing with dimensions and materials that contrast with the temporal qualities and physical properties of the objects they are emulating, these pieces engage in a dialogue with surrealism and its exploration of “impossible” forms. A modest chess pawn of monumental dimensions is surrounded by piles of melting snow, apparently fleeting in nature yet possessed of the solidity and permanence of marble, habituating the viewer to states of uncertainty.

— Museo de Arte de Zapopan

Image: Exhibition Beyond Behind / Atrás y más allá, Courtesy of Museo de Arte de Zapopan (MAZ). Photo: Lazarillo.