Teleportation (Kerzen) (Teleportation (Candles))

Preoccupied with time, space, objecthood and illusion, Alicja Kwade exposes and manipulates the ways we situate ourselves in the world. In Teleportation (Kerzen), a concertinaed screen of glass stands on the floor. Three identical candles are arranged around it, two of them facing one another on either side of the glass as if in reflection, a third situated alone at a slight remove. The effect of the work changes completely depending on the position of the viewer. From some vantages, the composition of candles and glass seems straightforward. From other viewpoints, multiple ghostly mirror-images of the candles and their flickering flames appear in the angled panes of glass – glowing like the real thing, half-glowing, or perhaps barely there. The question of how many actual candles are there becomes uncertain. Reflection becomes teleportation, and the mystery of what we see and how we see it comes alive with a quiet magic. ‘I’m fascinated with the borders between science and suspicion’, says Kwade. ‘All the in-betweens’ (A. Kwade, quoted in K. Bradley, ‘Alicja Kwade,’ ArtReview, December 2013).