For the second instalment of ReCollect!, Ida Ekblad and Matias Faldbakken have hung one of their favourite works from the Kunsthaus Zürich collection, Francis Picabia's Cure-dents (Toothpicks) c. 1924, opposite four painted bronze sculptures by Ekblad. Faldbakken has then 'measured' the distance between the Picabia and the Ekblad, using the ribbon of a VHS-cassette of the 1983 slasher film Stage Fright. Ekblad's collagist approach to sculpture resonates with Picabia's playful collage of a flower pot.

Kunsthaus Zürich

Published by Kunsthalle Zürich and Lenz Press, Ida Ekblad's long-awaited first monograph, Melted Snow, presents 398 illustrations alongside essays by Daniel Baumann, Martha Kirszenbaum, and Stian Grøgaard, and a conversation between the artist and Agnes Moraux. The book now available for purchase on the Galerie Max Hetzler publications website. 

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Ida Ekblad's A DEADLY SLUMBER OF ALL FORCES is now part of the collection of the Kistefos Sculpture Park in Jevnaker, Norway. Hand-painted, this momumental, site-specific sculpture is the largest sculptural work of the artist to date.

Structurally, the work is composed of four parts that are assembled by applying the cubist method of a jigsaw-puzzle-like composition of elements that are outlined in flat surfaces. Ekblad reinvigorates the technique and creates a multi-perspective synthesis of mind and memory. While the cubists most often de- and reconstructed a figurative element, Ekblad mainly uses abstract patterns in her compositions, like the maritime blue and the white Breton stripes which unfold like butterfly wings in the topmost element of the sculpture.

‘The mind is inhabited with trillions of pieces and here is where my source material naturally derives from or is being molded; I chop it and pitch it and move it about, turn it inside out, block print it and roll it up. Although it could be old moldy memories or references, I search for a “futurism” of it all. Whether clogged up of dystopian Philip K Dick-esque nightmares or very sweet, sad post-rave after-glow introspective moods. I hope, like William Wordsworth, that my future mind “Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms”.’
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 – Ida Ekblad 

Kistefos Sculpture Park

A Minigraph was published on the occasion of Ida Ekblad's exhibition GIRL FIRES UP STOVE at Kunstnernes Hus. The publication includes a conversation between Ekblad and the American artist Joe Bradley.

"Painting to me works like a secret, like shrouded poetry, it's a container of a very precise language, much more articulate than any language formed by alphabets could ever dream of being." – Ida Ekblad

Get a copy here.

Ida Ekblad's The Girls Will Bring You Nightmares, 2020 is now part of the collection of the Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

Moderna Museet Stockholm