i8 Gallery is pleased to announce Silent Archibionts, a solo exhibition by Alicja Kwade that opens on 24 July 2025 and will remain on view until 6 September. The show, the artist’s fourth with i8, comprises a single, large-scale sculpture: Archibiont (2025). Within the work, a static, black powder-coated steel frame evolves into organic imagery, as the smooth steel transforms into highly textured, verdigris tree bark and animal antlers made of bronze.

Throughout her practice, Kwade examines overlapping principles that guide science, mathematics, and philosophy. While continually shifting perceptions and questioning established theories, the artist has developed a visual language around celestial and earthly principles and the interwoven relationships of art and nature. The continual relevance of society’s quest to apply meaning and measurement to life forces underscores the inherent mysteries of the universe, many of which remain unsolved and perpetually in a state of artistic and scientific exploration. 

Within Archibont, her new major work, Kwade considers myriad inspirations from architecture, biology, metaphysics, and philosophy. Aristotle’s doctrine of hylomorphism, which explores the concepts of matter, form, and existence within a natural body, is particularly of relevance to this installation, which embodies a state of metamorphosis. While expressing a moment of change, Kwade also uses bronze as a medium to preserve nature within a suspended state of time. These tensions within the supernatural elements of Archibont reflect that of greater forces, rules of order, beauty, and chaos that similarly remain in flux throughout earth and space.

Working across multiple mediums, including installation, sculpture, work on paper, and film, Alicja Kwade (b. 1979, Katowice, Poland) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. In 2022, she had a yearlong exhibition at i8 Grandi in Reykjavík titled In Relation to the Sun, to Sequences of Events within 8016 hours. Additional recent exhibitions include solo shows at Tai Twun Contemporary, Hong Kong; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge; Dallas Contemporary; Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré, Tours; Blueproject Foundation, Barcelona; ESPOO Museum of Modern Art; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; Fondazione Giuliani, Rome; Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich; YUZ Museum, Shanghai; de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam. Kwade was the recipient of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2019 Roof Garden Commission. In 2015-2016, Public Art Fund commissioned “Against the Run,” an installation in New York’s Central Park.