09 Sep 2011

Nina Backman at Berlin Art Projects

SOLO EXHIBITION AT BERLIN ART PROJECTS

NINA BACKMAN │ LIVING ROOM


SEPTEMBER 2011
OPENING │ FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9TH, 2011 │ 7 PM – 9 PM │MEHRINGDAMM 33 │ 10961 BERLIN


Berlin Art Projects is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition by Nina Backman on Friday, the 9 September from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Entitled 'Living Room', the gallery exhibition will feature work by the Finish artist in Berlin.

Living Room - A chandelier, a weathered chair, delicate paper collages and bombarded work on canvas transform the exhibition space into a domestic interior, a room bearing the traces of life. Who lives here and what does the furniture have say about its residents?

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a glittering chandelier – an elaborate light that we might know from our own living rooms. What makes this sculpture special is its material: sugar and 5000 hand-crafted sugar crystals carefully arranged by the artist. In titling it 'Sweet little lies', Backman gives the viewer some indication of the meaning behind it. There is a fragility and a vulnerability in every beauty. How do we live or how do we want to live? To what values do we follow? The work raises questions as to what degree Backman's work is a search for clues at all; it asks questions rather than provide answers and gives us models to live by.
A wooden chair, positioned in the middle of the room, is an invitation to visitors to linger, to stay and sit for awhile. The chair, including its 'Title' 'Help me, I'm God!' is a found artifact from the streets of Berlin. The transformation of existing materials into a work of art was for artist Marcel Duchamp a factor crucial to artistic creation. Backman urges us to reflect upon – as well as freely associate and complete the work with our own thoughts as to what it could mean. The artist alludes to issues of identity and multiculturalism and point to some of the artist's central concerns.

'He loves me, he loves me not' - a marguerita shot with a shotgun - the title of the work is as at the same time her description: Backman had the canvas and therefore also the flower petals shot through with a gun, hinting at the ambivalence between beauty and fragility, not only within the piece but also in our own lives. Completing the exhibition concept is a selection of paper collages: In 'From crisis to creativity' or 'How much joy can you stand?', the artist reflects on beauty and transience, hopes and fears as well as technical progress and the environmental movement of our times. Ever present are art-historical references, such as that to the notion of vanitas, for instance.

Backman, who works in the margin between stage design, installation and performance, confronts the viewer with the problems of mankind. Her work asks about life concepts, identities and values. With Living Room, she presents a poetic and aesthetic body of artworks accessible to every viewer.


NINA BACKMAN was born in Helsinki in 1971 and originally studied Theatre Design at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts in the UK. She received a B.A. Honours. The artist has participated in national and international exhibitions and has worked on many films. Nina Backman lives and works in Berlin.