Klara Lidén en

Biography

In this video piece, the artist is filmed in profile walking through empty Manhattan streets by night. Her movements slowed down to an extreme, she slides through the urban landscape at a different rhythm to the world that surrounds her. A melancholic piano tune accompanies the moving images like a funeral march – a lethargic and apocalyptic vision. The shots are filmed at different distances: at some points Lidén is seen from the other side of the road with cars speeding by in the opposite direction, at other points we see a train pass by quickly in the background. The low-resolution footage and handheld camera movements allude to the viral videos of YouTubers who, out of nowhere, become stars for 15 ‘Warholian’ minutes. The work can be read as an elegy to productivity and to the performed self, as mastered by Michael Jackson, who made the Moonwalk famous worldwide in his routine for “Billie Jean” in 1983. In executing dance movements at a slowed down rhythm, Lidén lays her technique bare, deliberately failing to create the kind of illusion and spectacle Jackson achieved.

Klara Lidén’s solo exhibitions (SW, 1979, based in  Berlin and New York) have been at, among other places, Secession, Vienna (2019), Reena Spaulings Fine Arts, New York (2028), Kunstverein, Braunschweig (2016), Wiels, Brussels; Le Consortium, Dijon (2015), Museion, Bolzano; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2013); New Museum, New York (2012); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2011); Biennial participations have included Tallin Baltic (2018), Istanbul (2017) and Venice (2011).