Works by Matthew Barney, Ida Eklbad, Albert Oehlen, and Christopher Wool are included in Before Tomorrow – an extensive group exhibition celebrating the hidden treasures and recent acquisitions of the Astrup Fearnley Collection in celebration of its thirtieth anniversary. The selected works represent various time periods and highlight a number of key directions that have come to define the identity of the collection and the museum more broadly.

Astrup Fearnley Museet

Six monumental cast iron sculptures by Ida Ekblad will be presented in the artist’s solo exhibition Strange Freedoms Shall Be Sought. Ekblad pays tribute to the long and rich history of iron as an ancient material which is traditionally used in Norway to cast stoves. Until the 20th century, these stoves were often decorated with reliefs of fairytale figures or religious symbols designed by Norwegian artists and architects. Ekblad continues this tradition in her minimalistic and monumental designs. A closer look reveals elaborate reliefs, silhouettes on feet and pipes, and mysterious phrases that draw the viewer into the artist’s genre-breaking universe.

KODE Art Museum

Ida Ekblad’s sculpture BOOK OF BOREDOM, 2022, is now on view as part of ARTZUID, the leading Sculpture Biennale of the Netherlands. Bringing together fifty sculptures by internationally renowned artists on Amsterdam’s Apollolaan and Minervalaan, the eight edition of ARTZUID reflects the theme of Transfer.

Ekblad's monumental painted bronze sculpture combines fragments from the artist’s expressive paintings. Conveying a rich sense of abundance and corporality, the work presents a vibrant composition filled with fragmented, angular patterns and shapes, merging elements of figuration and abstraction.

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