TANKA ART
A few days ago, while browsing Ocula, I came across a photograph of an extraordinary sculpture. Ten polished stone spheres, stacked one above another, forming a seemingly unstable tower, 4.4 metres high.
The sculpture, L’Élévation des Mondes (2026), was installed outside the Grand Palais during Art Basel Paris. It immediately caught my attention, and I became curious about the artist behind it.
Alicja Kwade is a Polish-German contemporary artist, born in 1979 and based in Berlin. Her work includes sculpture, installation, photography and film.
As I began exploring her work, I discovered how much our interests have in common. Time, space, gravity, repetition, the nature of reality and the way we perceive it — these are questions that fascinate me as well.
But something else caught my attention. In an interview with Ocula, Kwade spoke about the decision to remove her sculpture early because of anticipated protests in Paris.
She believes that public art should be part of everyday life, accessible to people and open to interaction and dialogue. Even the possibility of damage is part of its existence in the real world.
I find this attitude particularly meaningful. Art does not have to exist separately from life, protected from everything happening around it.
Discovering Alicja Kwade was a lovely reminder of how exciting it is to encounter an artist whose questions feel so close to your own.