The work Freitag, 21. Juni 2013, 15:30:11 Uhr consists of seven metal cubes and five grams of gold. The size of each cube reflects how much five grams of gold would buy at the specific moment in time that is stated in the title. Besides gold, the materials are silver, nickel, tin, copper, lead, zinc and aluminium.
Artist Alicja Kwade, who was born in Katowice, Poland in 1979, lives and works in Berlin, where she studied at Berlin University of the Arts. When she received the Piepenbrock Prize for Sculpture in 2008, she held an important solo exhibition at exhibition venue Hamburger Bahnhof.
Already in 2009, Heart acquired one of her works, and since then, the museum has followed her career and therefore asked the new Carlsberg Foundation for a grant to add the present piece to the museum’s collection. Heart’s director, Holger Reenberg, characterizes Alicja Kwade as one of today’s most original sculptors:
‘Freitag, 21. Juni 2013, 15:30:11 Uhr is a snapshot of the economic relationship between the various metals but also a reflection of the complex network that makes up the fabric of our global society. The audience is therefore confronted with the fact that the form and scale of the piece is an abstract manifestation of world history at the precise time when the work was titled,’ says Holger Reenberg.
He explains that Freitag, 21. Juni 2013, 15:30:11 Uhr holds particular relevance for Heart:
‘By virtue of its form and content, the piece enters into a relationship with one of Heart’s main works: Piero Manzoni’s Socle du Monde [Base of the world], which also attempts to embrace the whole world. But while Socle du Monde is a dynamic piece that works and develops in a process shaped by time and site, Freitag, 21. Juni 2013, 15:30:11 Uhr holds its own unique moment of creation up against the rest of the world with the purpose of inviting us to engage in the fleeting nature of existence.’
