Despite its open, gridded structure and stone spheres suspended in apparent defiance of gravity, Alicja Kwade’s LinienLand weighs more than twenty-five tons. She conceived the work while installing her large-scale sculpture Pars pro Toto at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Observing massive cranes lift heavy stones into place, she envisioned a piece in which spheres appear to float weightlessly. The grid structure in LinienLand symbolizes human logic and systems, while the spheres, made from natural stone sourced from various continents, evoke the passage of time. This juxtaposition exemplifies Kwade’s distinctive artistic language, which often blends humanmade elements and natural materials in an effort to explore the essence of our reality and examine social structures.

Installed outdoors for the first time, LinienLand acts as a frame through which to view the surrounding sky and landscape, suggesting parallel worlds and encouraging reflection on the constructs that shape our understanding of existence. Kwade has cited the 1884 satirical novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott, which is a commentary on the strictures of Victorian society set in a two-dimensional world, as a source of inspiration for her multidimensional works.

You may enter the sculpture but do not climb on or touch the work. Please mind your steps as you as you follow the path through the artwork.