Nina Beier points to unsettling aspects of everyday objects and habits

Nina Beier (b. 1975, Denmark) turns the spotlight onto the biographies and historical baggage that many everyday items carry with them. Her sculptures are often based on existing objects that she finds in online marketplaces and second-hand shops – everywhere that once-produced, bought, used, and rejected goods accumulate. 

Recurrent themes in the works in the Parts exhibition include gendered roles and humankind’s relationship with more-than-human species. In the pieces on display at Kiasma, Beier has used, for instance, mechanical bulls and breast milk substitute (Beast, 2018), wigs made of real hair and remote-controlled cars (Auto, 2017), massage chairs and precious metals recovered from electronic waste (Manual Therapy, 2016), as well as fertilised soil and the seeds of an endangered palm tree from the Seychelles (Female Nude, 2015) – once valuable commodities that resemble the female groin. In her sculptures, she uses objects as mirrors that reflect the world around them, its power structures, flows of materials and money, questions of authenticity, and the endless meanings associated with merchandise.  

Besides sculptures, Beier has created many performances during her career. One of these, Drama, will be staged at Kiasma. In it, actors are crying into a drink in the exhibition space. The performance can be seen on Fridays and Saturdays, details of times will be posted on the museum’s website.  

At the end of May, the exhibition will extend outside the museum’s premises with Beier’s fountain sculpture Women & Children (2022) displayed in front of Kiasma. It has now been acquired for the Finnish National Gallery’s collections, with the support of the New Carlsberg Foundation, and will remain on permanent display in the pool on the museum’s café terrace.  

The Parts exhibition is the most extensive overview of Beier’s works in the Nordic countries. It is curated by Kiasma’s Curator of Exhibitions Piia Oksanen.  

In March 2024, Nina Beier opens two exhibitions concurrently, at Capc musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, France and Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. The two exhibitions, although autonomous, complete each other and together cover Beier’s twenty-year long artistic practice spanning sculpture, installation and performance. She also has an upcoming institutional solo show in Tamayo, Mexico City, later this year. 

Artist’s biography 

Nina Beier has shown internationally for the past two decades and her work has been included in exhibitions at major institutions, most recently at Lafayette Anticipations, Paris (2024), Mudam, Luxembourg (2024), Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2023); the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California (2022) and Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, Italy (2022). Her work has been featured in major international exhibitions including the Lyon Biennale, France (2022); the Busan Biennale, Korea (2022) and the São Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2021-2022). She has had solo exhibitions for instance at Rønnebæksholm, Denmark (2021); Spike Island, Bristol, England (2018); Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany (2015) and Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Lithuania (2015). 

Nina Beier: Parts 
22.3.–8.9.2024