Nina Canell

Nina Canell (born 1979, lives in Berlin) creates fragile installations that transform man-made and “natural” found objects into studies on mutability. In placing electrical devices and neon lights alongside water and rocks or musical instruments and broom handles, she removes them from their everyday context and brings them together in assemblages where every object is equal. Once in these temporary structures the objects become active protagonists and bring their own temporal and narrative logic to the piece. She was awarded the 2009 Baloise Art Prize at this year’s Art Basel for her installation "Soon You Will Have Forgotten All Things and Soon All Things Will Have Forgotten You". Her limited edition for the Kunstverein is based on this piece. The image, now composed in a somewhat makeshift fashion with four sections, was originally divided in two with the front and back sides each showing half of the image and half of the abovementioned title. Now we only see the personified objects, which lay claim to their existence and seem to speak their own secret language – a language that turns the observation contained in the words into insolvable puzzle: "Soon You Will Have Forgotten All Things And Soon All Things Will Have Forgotten You".

Nina Canell is a Swedish artist who studied in Dublin. She spent time in New York to take part in Location One’s residency programme. She recently exhibited her work at the Manifesta 7 in Rovereto, at the Muhka in Antwerp, at the ICA in London and at the Konrad Fischer Gallery in Düsseldorf.