BOOK OF BOREDOM

Ida Ekblad

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About the Artwork

A monumental, painted sculpture in bronze, Ida Ekblad’s BOOK OF BOREDOM, 2022, combines fragments from the artist’s own expressive paintings. Emblematic of her radical take on medium specificity, the work sees Ekblad bring disparate remainders of flat artworks stacked together in a gravity-defying, three-dimensional manner. Initially, Ekblad follows the same approach as her paintings: ‘cutting, uniting and assembling shapes and forms’, before hand painting onto bronze-cast structures as though they were canvases, defying the medium’s supposed demand for flatness. Conveying a rich sense of abundance and corporality, BOOK OF BOREDOM presents a vibrant composition filled with fragmented, angular patterns and shapes, merging elements of figuration and abstraction.

Year: 2022

Material

Hand-painted bronze cast

Dimensions

300 x 169 x 110 cm

Artist Biography

Ida Ekblad

Ida Ekblad’s (b. 1980) artistic practice incorporates painting, sculpture, performance, filmmaking as well as poetry. The forms and gestures found in Ekblad’s work derive from a wide variety of inspirations and art historical references, such as CoBrA, Situationism and Abstract Expressionism, but also pop cultural aesthetics like graffiti or cartoon that indicate Ekblad’s genre-crossing approach. Sculpture allows the artist to investigate the potential of painterly technique and to reinterpret the conventions of classifying artistic media as a rule to be broken. In recent years, Ekblad’s work has been the subject of institutional exhibitions at KODE Art Museum, Bergen (2023); Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2021); Kunsthalle Zürich; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Jardin des Tuileries, Paris (all 2019); Kunstverein Braunschweig (2018); Kunsthas Hamburg (2017); The National Museum of Norway, Oslo; and Kunstmuseum Luzern (both 2013). The artist participated in the Venice Biennale in 2017 and 2011. Ekblad’s work is in the collections of the Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo; Buffalo AKG Art Museum; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and The National Museum of Norway, Oslo, among others.