IDA EKBLAD

A DEADLY SLUMBER OF ALL FORCES, 2021
now part of the collection of the Kistefos Sculpture Park

Installation view: A DEADLY SLUMBER OF ALL FORCES, 2021, Kistefos Sculpture Park, Oslo, 2021, photo: Vegard Kleven, reproduced with permission from Kistefos Museum and Peder Lund
Installation view: A DEADLY SLUMBER OF ALL FORCES, 2021, Kistefos Sculpture Park, Oslo, 2021, photo: Vegard Kleven, reproduced with permission from Kistefos Museum and Peder Lund

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

Installation view: A DEADLY SLUMBER OF ALL FORCES, 2021, Kistefos Sculpture Park, Oslo, 2021, photo: Vegard Kleven, reproduced with permission from Kistefos Museum and Peder Lund
Installation view: A DEADLY SLUMBER OF ALL FORCES, 2021, Kistefos Sculpture Park, Oslo, 2021, photo: Vegard Kleven, reproduced with permission from Kistefos Museum and Peder Lund

Additional:

IDA EKBLAD

ReCollect! 2nd Chapter
Kunsthaus Zürich
From 20 March 2024

Installation view: ReCollect! – Ida Ekblad and Matias Faldbakken, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2024, photo: Kunsthaus Zürich, Franca Candrian
Installation view: ReCollect! – Ida Ekblad and Matias Faldbakken, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2024, photo: Kunsthaus Zürich, Franca Candrian

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

Installation view: ReCollect! – Ida Ekblad and Matias Faldbakken, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2024, photo: Kunsthaus Zürich, Franca Candrian
Installation view: ReCollect! – Ida Ekblad and Matias Faldbakken, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2024, photo: Kunsthaus Zürich, Franca Candrian

IDA EKBLAD et al.

ReCollect! (group show)
Kunsthaus Zürich
From 1 September 2023

Installation view: ReCollect!, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2023, photo: Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich
Installation view: ReCollect!, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2023, photo: Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich

Ida Ekblad and Matias Faldbakken will participate in ReCollect!, a new project which invites contemporary artists to curate parts of the Kunsthaus Zürich’s permanent collection. In presenting the museum’s collection in dialogue with their own works, the artists seek to question and reshape the established canon. For ReCollect!, Ekblad and Faldbakken will collaborate for the first time, creating a joint installation in which they interpret selected works from the Kunsthaus Collection, as seen through their own artistic practice. Their gestures open up new perspectives on the way the holdings are displayed and bring the work of women artists into focus. Alongside Ekblad and Faldbakken, Peruvian artist Daniela Ortiz and the Swiss collective Hulda Zwingli have also been invited to participate in the series.

Kunsthaus Zürich

Installation view: ReCollect!, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2023, photo: Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich
Installation view: ReCollect!, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2023, photo: Franca Candrian, Kunsthaus Zürich

IDA EKBLAD

Melted Snow (publication)
Published by Kunsthalle Zürich / Lenz 2022

Photo: def image
Photo: def image

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. 

Learn more

Photo: def image
Photo: def image

IDA EKBLAD

Minigraph: Ida Ekblad in conversation with Joe Bradley (publication)

Photo: Leonie Merkl, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo
Photo: Leonie Merkl, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo

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.

Photo: Leonie Merkl, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo
Photo: Leonie Merkl, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo

IDA EKBLAD

The Girls Will Bring You Nightmares, 2020 (permanent collection)
now part of the collection of the Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Ida Ekblad, The Girls Will Bring You Nightmares, 2020. Photo: Prallan Allsten/Moderna Museet, © Ida Ekblad
Ida Ekblad, The Girls Will Bring You Nightmares, 2020. Photo: Prallan Allsten/Moderna Museet, © Ida Ekblad

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

Moderna Museet Stockholm

Ida Ekblad, The Girls Will Bring You Nightmares, 2020. Photo: Prallan Allsten/Moderna Museet, © Ida Ekblad
Ida Ekblad, The Girls Will Bring You Nightmares, 2020. Photo: Prallan Allsten/Moderna Museet, © Ida Ekblad