Collection

Prepared especially for the Museum, the installation Untitled is composed of trash cans gathered from the streets of New York City. Symptoms of metropolitan life, connected rather with its oppressive and “dirty” side have been positioned to suggest a temporary domestication (the furniture, the lamp). Klara Lidén specializes in showing anxiety-causing elements of contemporary big city life. Her works are filled with rage and anxiety – emotions that must be suppressed or subdued in order for the metropolis to function. This idea put forward by the artist is one of the most effective attempts at redefining the city present in art – the image of city is fundamentally different from popular positivist social experiments or nostalgic rapture over modernity in cities. Lidén is keen to explore the ignored dark side of big city life, the areas exhibiting negligence, its “bowels” – as these are the nooks and crannies of consciousness we cautiously choose to ignore in order to survive the everyday chaos of city life.