Alina Chaiderov »Aeon«

Hemisphere, a hammered and welded copper half-sphere mounted on the wall, could be a halo separated from a Russian Orthodox icon, the frontal view of a celestial body, while the title alludes to a side of the brain. Chaiderov often incorporates this duality in her work: hidden in plain sight, her constructions are imbued both with musings on the universe and religious symbolism, a common symbiosis until the beginning of the twentieth century.

The suite of sculptures Core of Existence stand like extraterrestrial beings, or jellyfish, with tentacles of brushed steel and blown glass Torus-shaped heads. The Torus is a significant topological form for Chaiderov. In philosophy and in physics, the Torus has been described as an intuitive geometric metaphor for the continuous flow of matter and energy around us, but, as the title reveals, also within us.

Chaiderov often employs copper in her work, a harmless material except to those who, like the artist, suffer from Wilson’s disease: a rare and threatening condition that causes copper levels to build up in the organs. She likens copper pipes, so ubiquitous in urban infrastructure, to veins in the human body. In Velocity a runner carpet is wrapped around a two-meter-long copper pipe, suggesting a latent forward momentum, rolling with precision. While the pipe is industrial, the carpet carries a more intimate story about Chaiderov's family, a fully packed car with an oriental carpet on the roof.

In parallel with the sculptures, Chaiderov works with photographs, where she "captures time" with her phone camera. The photographic side of her practice comprises everyday micro-phenomena observations. In their intense small format, surrounded by passepartout, they recall an aggrandized Instagram feed. But they also strongly link to her sculpture. They are sculptural. They lead to sculptures. They function as a call-and-response with her sculptures yet live their own lives.

Alina Chaiderov (Leningrad, Former USSR, 1984) lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. This is her first solo show in Sweden, after establishing herself in the international art scene, with solo exhibitions at Aranya Art Centre, China (2023), Musée d’art moderne et comtemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, France (2021); a presentation in Art Basel Statements (2018), as well as shows at Pori Art Museum, Finland and Castello di Rivoli, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Italy (both 2016). In Sweden, she has taken part in group shows at Gothenburg Art Gallery (2019, 2014), Borås Art Museum (2018). In 2018, she took part in the duo exhibition Mending a broken world, with Lenke Rothman's at Sörmlands museum. Chaiderov received the Present Future illy Award in 2015, the same year that she obtained her BA at Akademin Valand in Gothenburg.