How do architectural and corporeal boundaries intersect? Elisabeth Kihlström works with a group of performers to activate the gallery space, literally, by attaching taut metal strings to the architecture and turning it into a resonance chamber. Through measured movement and physical tension, the performers' bodies generate and modulate sound, creating a live composition shaped by strain, gesture, and resistance. The piece reveals the hidden sonic environment of the built structure. It is a choreography of negotiation, tension, and collision between flesh, force, and form.
After the performance, the strings remain in the space as a spatial intervention, complementing four of Kihlström’s sculptures previously exhibited at Kunstmuseum Bonn when she received the 2024 Dorothea von Stetten Art Award. On view until 19 July.
Images: Elisabeth Kihlström, Carapace, 2024, handwoven textile in blond horsehair and cotton, iron, paint, stainless steel hooks, expanders, bolts.
Double Concave, 2024, handwoven textile in pure silver yarn, aluminum.
Throat, 2024, handwoven textile in pure silver yarn, archival paper, aluminum, wood, nails.
Smoked, 2024, handwoven textile in oxidized pure silver yarn, aluminum, studs
Elisabeth Kihlström (b. 1988, Sundborn, Sweden) lives and works in Vienna. Kihlström completed her master's diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna under professor Julian Göthe in 2015.
The practice of Elisabeth Kihlström encompasses textile, sculpture, performance, photography, film, writing, exhibition display and installation. She addresses how architectural, social and mental spaces of the modern (queer) subject are constructed by engaging with their contemporary manifestations and historical developments. Through her multidisciplinary artworks, Kihlström explores how complex ideas and diverse materials can create constellations as an exhibition or public art. While her individual pieces are autonomous works of art, they are brought together and combined with display structures to generate an exhibition environment that is a total work of art.
Images: rehearsal and performance of Tuning, documentation by Georg Petermichl.