Alicja Kwade
Hubwagen

The three Hubwagen (pallet trucks) are the first in a series of limited edition objects produced by Alicja Kwade for Edition Block. Following in the footsteps of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, Kwade often uses industrially manufactured objects and materials to create meticulously designed installations through minimalist, precise interventions that throw perceptions off balance and question value and classification. Here, three industrial pallet trucks of different sizes in red, yellow, and blue mutate into metaphors for the “circulation of capital,” loosely based on Karl Marx. Through a surgical intervention – the “bending” of the wings by means of segmentation and reconnection that are no longer visible in the end result – the means of transport is deprived of its function. Turning endlessly in circles, it refuses to participate in the processes of production and economic progress. The three Hubwagen, of which six copies each are planned, describe precisely calculated radii of 100, 150, and 250 cm. The concept of the multiple allows for a performative activation of the Hubwagen, in which these radii are navigated by the deformed work tools as a kind of “industrial ballet.” The work can be viewed in connection with the larger installation In Circles from 2012. For In Circles, Kwade arranged a variety of inflexible, solid materials such as steel, glass, and wooden panels, windows, doors, metal grilles, mirrors, copper pipes, and a bicycle into precisely concentric circles by subtly “bending” them. Inside the orbits of this parallel universe of familiar yet eerily distorted everyday objects, a two-euro coin stands discreetly curved on its edge – here, too, matter and capital circulate.
The edition Hubwagen also represents Block’s ongoing concern with expanding the notion of the limited edition object, which is usually associated with small formats, through large-format, sculptural works and new media.
Text: Eva Scharrer