Alicja Kwade

Telos Tales

On View
May 7 – Aug 15, 2025
New York

Pace is pleased to present Alicja Kwade: Telos Tales, an exhibition of new work by Alicja Kwade, at its 508 and 510 West 25th Street galleries in New York. Featuring never-before-seen monumental sculptures alongside new mixed media works, this marks Kwade’s debut solo show at Pace in New York since the gallery began representing her in 2023. On view from May 7 to August 15, the exhibition coincides with this year’s edition of Frieze New York.

Kwade is known internationally for sculptures, large-scale public installations, films, photographs, and works on paper that engage poetically and critically with scientific and philosophical concepts. Through a distinctive vocabulary encompassing reflection, repetition, and the manipulation of everyday objects and natural materials, the artist raises questions about structures and systems that govern and shape our daily lives. In her contemplative works, which dismantle boundaries of perception, she challenges commonly accepted ideas and beliefs while proposing new modes of seeing and understanding reality.

Kwade’s work is represented in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, mumok – Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna, and the Yuz Museum in Shanghai, among other international institutions. Her public sculptures can also be found around the world—at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California and MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts as well as sites in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and other countries. Her practice is part of a lineage of pioneering 20th century abstractionists within Pace’s program, including Louise Nevelson—who shaped what would come to be known as installation art with her iconic sculptural “environments”—and Agnes Martin, whose work was exhibited alongside Kwade’s in a two-artist exhibition at the gallery’s Los Angeles space in 2024.

At the center of Alicja Kwade: Telos Tales are three large-scale sculptures in which powder-coated steel frames gradually transform into amorphous, tree-like bronze forms. The architectural, linear structures slowly dissolve into organic shapes, as if one material is evolving into the other. The sculptures unfold into a distinct, self-contained configuration—complete in itself, yet intrinsically connected to a larger conceptual framework. Each work is named for a concept from Aristotle’s fourfold theory of causes: Causa Materialis, Causa Efficiens, and Causa Formalis. The fourth cause, Causa Finalis—the purpose, or telos—remains unnamed but not unconsidered: it is implicit in the exhibition’s title.

Another work, PhaseChase, explores the intangible nature of time. This piece consists of a highly polished stainless steel pipe suspended from the ceiling. Embedded within the pipe is a double-sided clock face, mirrored from within to create a multiplication of reflections that appear to dissolve into a curved, reflective surface.

Though distinct in form and concept, these works engage in a dynamic dialogue. Material and time intersect, literally and conceptually, generating a space in which perception, causality, and temporality become intertwined.

In this immersive exhibition, Kwade deepens her long-standing interest in time as a structuring principle of perception, reality, and causality. Her works reflect on the cyclical, linear, and ultimately elusive nature of temporal experience and its interdependence on both natural and constructed systems—an ongoing theme in her practice. This presentation showcases new developments in Kwade’s engagement with material, form, and concept, and it exemplifies the experimental spirit that has defined her work from the very beginning of her career.

Kwade’s exhibition at Pace in New York will follow her first solo institutional presentation in Hong Kong, which was presented this year at Tai Kwun. In the fall, the artist will mount a solo exhibition at M Leuven in Belgium.

Rather than trying to pin time down, Kwade lets it slip, stretch and refract. With a deft, experimental hand her work refuses answers, finding beauty in the mystery and deconstructing it entirely.

Erin Ikeuchi, (opens in a new window) Hypebeast

Films

How Alicja Kwade Traps Time in Her Monumental Exhibition Telos Tales

Featuring new commentary from the artist and Pace CEO Marc Glimcher, this film sheds light on the scientific and philosophical concepts that Kwade explores as part of her work—including teleology, which is central to her show at Pace—as well as the art historical lineage of her practice. Engaging with the intangible nature of time, Telos Tales is an immersive exhibition of large-scale sculptures that deepens Kwade's long-standing interest in temporality as a structuring principle of perception, reality, and causality. "It questions what our position is in the structure of this universe that we're thrown into," the artist says of the presentation.

What part of me don’t you know by Alicja Kwade

Alicja Kwade portrait, photo by: Doro Zinn © Alicja Kwade

About the Artist

Alicja Kwade investigates and questions universally accepted notions of space, time, science, and philosophy by breaking down frames of perception in her work. Kwade’s multifaceted practice spans sculpture, installation, video, and photography. She utilizes quotidian and found objects such as rocks, mirrors, lamps, and clocks to explore profound ideas about the fabric of reality. Kwade’s use of elements such as copper, iron, human-made plastics, and recycled materials reflects her interest in both physics and chemistry, using art to bring core concepts together and examine the phenomena of the physical world.

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EXHIBITION DETAILS

Alicja Kwade
Telos Tales
May 7 – Aug 15, 2025

GALLERY

508 & 510 West 25th Street
New York

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Alicja Kwade

Telos Tales

Films

How Alicja Kwade Traps Time in Her Monumental Exhibition Telos Tales

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About the Artist

EXHIBITION DETAILS

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Journal

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How Alicja Kwade Traps Time in Her Monumental Exhibition “Telos Tales”