Nina Beier
12 September–13 December 2014
Opening: Thursday 11 September, 7–9pm
DRAF
Symes Mews,
37 Camden High St
London NW1 7JE
Hours: Thursday–Saturday noon–6 pm,
Tuesday–Wednesday by appointment
T +44 020 7383 3004
info [at] davidrobertsartfoundation.com
www.davidrobertsartfoundation.com
This solo exhibition by Nina Beier presents recent and new sculptures including a major spatial commission created for DRAF.
An ambitious new work, Tileables (2014), functions as a base for the exhibition. A 125-square-metre mosaic of ceramic tiles individually printed with texture patterns originally designed for 3-D modeling software to imitate concrete, skin, mud and other surfaces takes the relationship between the digital and physical namesake to its absurd conclusion. These tiles are accompanied by fresh delivered boxes of vegetables, hacked flatscreen fireplaces, tangled garden hoses and stacks of handmade carpets; plotting a muddy field of the fluid and the petrified, the imitation and the actual.
“This exhibition is the culmination of a six-year conversation with Nina, presenting one of the most singular and accurate voices of recent years. We will focus this London presentation on sculptures, and so explore works that are trapped in an ambiguous position between an object and the representation of that object.”
–Vincent Honoré (Director, DRAF)
Beier’s practice negotiates social and political questions of representation and exchange, inhabiting moments of conflict and correlation. She traces the convoluted relationships between objects and images, as mediation mutates information from things to representations and back again and images subsume or discard their referents to become distinct objects in their own right. These works reveal a violent contradiction between what they are and how they are used. Labour and production dynamics echo in DRAF’s building, a former furniture factory built at the end of the 19th century.
With thanks to Johnson Tiles; The Danish Arts Foundation; Laura Bartlett Gallery, London; Croy Nielson, Berlin; Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City; STANDARD (OSLO), Oslo; Mousse magazine; Bakhtiyar and Frontier Craft Lager.
For press information and images, or to arrange interviews or visits, please contact Rachel Cass: rachel [at] davidrobertsartfoundation.com or +44 (0) 207 383 3004.
Nina Beier (b. 1975, Aarhus, Denmark; lives in New York) graduated from the Royal College of Art, London (2004). She has recently exhibited her work in solo exhibitions at Mostyn, Llandudno (2014); Nottingham Contemporary (2014); Glasgow Sculpture Studios (2013); as well as in group exhibitions at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2014); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2013); Museion Bozen, Bolzano (2012); The Artist’s Institute, New York (2012); KW Institute For Contemporary Art, Berlin (2012); and Tate Modern, London (2012).
DRAF (David Roberts Art Foundation) is an independent, non-profit foundation founded in 2007. It is directed and curated by Vincent Honoré. DRAF presents an international programme of contemporary art exhibitions, commissions, live art events, discussions and projects.
The David Roberts Art Foundation Limited is a registered charity in England and Wales (No.1119738) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (No. 6051439) at Adam House, 1 Fitzroy Square London, W1T 5HE. It is proudly supported by the Edinburgh House Estates group of companies.
