Nina Canell

The nature of process is the material of my work, in the sense that I don't really make objects, but rather work in a syntax of relations and transfers. I think about sculpture as something that is grounded in material and objects, but is, at the same time, external to them. – Nina Canell

For Swedish artist Nina Canell the nature of process is the material of her practice. Grounded as much in the chance encounter as in close study, her work is characterized by a syntax of relations and transfers, whereby material forms and immaterial forces are placed in proximity, facilitating dynamic relations to emerge and sculpture as an agency to take form.

The negotiation and displacement of energy has been an integral preoccupation in her work since the very beginning. Thinking beyond the tangibility of sculpture, she sees it not only as something that is grounded in material and objects, but more as a host that might act as a conduit for external events.

For Canell, sculpture is a condition; one that is highly sensitive to spatio-temporal variables. The environment in which her sculptures are placed determines the temperature, atmosphere and transformation of objects - just as they in turn shape what is around them.

Nina Canell (b. 1979, Växjö, Sweden) lives and works in Berlin.

Her institutional solo exhibitions include Simian, Copenhagen (2024); Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2022); OGR Torino, Turin (2022); Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden (2019); S.M.A.K., Ghent (2018); Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St Gallen (2018); Artist’s Institute, New York (2017); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2017); Le Crédac, Ivry-sur-Seine (2017); Arko Art Center, Seoul (2015); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2014); Camden Arts Center, London (2014); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle (2014); Lunds Konsthall, Lund (2014); Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (2013); Fridericianum, Kassel (2011); MUMOK, Vienna (2010); ICA, London (2008).

Nina Canell has taken part in Venice, Sydney, Lyon, Gwangju, and Liverpool Biennial as well as in group shows at MoMA, New York; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, among others.