Exhibitions / Installations

In the Cut

Modernautställningen, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, SE
2010

curators: Fredrik Liew med Gertrud Sandqvist, Lisa Rosendahl

material: wood, paint, sculptures and various objects
dimensions: 237 x 1300 x 650 cm

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All Axel Lieber’s works originate in ordinary objects such as cardboard boxes, clothes or furniture. He transforms these objects into geometric compositions by simple modifications using a saw or a knife, and presents the viewer with mind-maps with which to see reality from the sculptor’s perspective.

His most recent work is the most commonplace – and yet most private – thing imaginable. Lieber has made a sculpture based on his own apartment. His home, a standard Swedish apartment block in Malmö, has two rooms, a kitchen, bathroom, hallway and balcony. By drawing two cross-sections of his apartment plan, cutting them into four triangles and turning the sections insideout, he created the rhomboid on which the sculpture is based. Here, outside has become inside and the private domestic sphere faces the public – as when we take off a jumper and it is turned inside out, revealing the inside to all and sundry. The inside and outside of the sculpture together measure 42 square metres, the same as his apartment. In order to achieve the same dimensions, he has downscaled the proportions to 80 per cent of the original apartment size.

The visitor encounters a denuded structure with openings in several directions, offering many different entries. Inside the sculpture are a variety of objects that activate the cool, pavilionlike structure. With its distinct references to modernist architecture and design, Axel Lieber’s art raises questions relating to how our private lives are interwoven with society at large, and how its ideologies have stepped into our living rooms.

Catrin Lundqvist

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The starting point of the installation was my private apartment in Malmö. The floor plan of the apartment was divided by diagonal cuts. The individual parts were turned outward and then put back together in such a way that a diamond-shaped sculpture with an atrium resulted. The inner courtyard, defined by the former exterior walls of the apartment, is actually the space surrounding the apartment – the outside world. The walls of the inner courtyard remain untreated, while the complete interior room, from the ceiling to the floor, was covered with white lacquer. The object was still identifiable as a private room, because the installation functioned as the bearer of additional individual sculptural works related to the domestic environment.