{"id":2212951,"date":"2026-10-21T20:28:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T17:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2212951"},"modified":"2026-10-21T20:28:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T17:28:37","slug":"amid-protests-alicja-kwade-removes-art-basel-paris-public-sculpture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2212951","title":{"rendered":"Amid Protests, Alicja Kwade Removes Art Basel Paris Public Sculpture"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Print_approx_21_x_14_cm_ABP26__Public_Program__Public_Interaction_HiRes.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\tA monumental sculpture by artist Alicja Kwade will be removed early from public display in Paris, where it was installed part of the public program of the Art Basel Paris fair. The piece is situated on the Avenue Winston Churchill, on the doorstep of the Grand Palais, where the fair is taking place; it went on view today and will be removed on Friday, rather than Sunday, her Paris gallery, Mennour, told ARTnews <\/em>in an email.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUnfortunately, only on view today and tomorrow, as it has to be dismantled, along with other sculptures, because of the announced riots and people who simply want to resort to violence,\u201d Kwade told her nearly 100,000 followers in an Instagram post on Wednesday. \u201cProtest is good, but why everything has to be smashed and destroyed is beyond\u2026\u201d she added. \u201cIt certainly doesn\u2019t help the cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe New York Times<\/em> called the Paris protests, which began as a small student movement and blossomed nationwide, \u201cthe most destructive riots in decades.\u201d More than half a million marched throughout France on Saturday, according to the Interior Ministry. Many were peaceful but some 1,500 shops and many symbols of the state were vandalized, leading to more than 2,000 arrests. Local authorities imposed curfews.<\/p>\n

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Alicja Kwade, L\u2019\u00c9l\u00e9vation des Mondes (2026).<\/span>Mennour<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tKwade\u2019s 2026 piece, L\u2019\u00c9l\u00e9vation des Mondes<\/em> (The Elevation of the Worlds<\/em>), stands over 14 feet high and is composed of a stack of spheres in materials like rainbow sandstone, black marble, and Carrara marble. According to a description on Mennour\u2019s website, \u201cthe sculpture explores questions of world order, power, colonization and humanity\u2019s attempt to construct systems that explain and organize reality. At the same time, it evokes the Tower of Babel\u2014the human desire to reach the stars and the inevitable failure of universal systems of order.\u201d It describes the materials as \u201cwitnesses to immense natural catastrophes, tectonic processes, and millions or even billions of years of planetary history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn in Poland in 1979, Kwade lives in Berlin. Besides Mennour, the artist works with New York\u2019s 303 Gallery and Pace Gallery, Reykjavik\u2019s i8 Gallery, and Gallery OMR in Mexico City, according to her website. Her work appears in museum collections from the Centre Pompidou in Paris to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Yuz Museum in Shanghai, and she has been included in major international exhibitions including the 2017 Venice Biennale, \u201cViva Arte Viva,\u201d curated by Christine Macel.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso on view at the same site as Kwade are works by Simone Fattal, Carmen Herrera, Marcello Maloberti, Keita Miyazaki, Manfred Pernice, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Yinka Shonibare. Press representatives for Art Basel did not immediately respond to ARTnews<\/em>\u2019s inquiry about whether other works will also be removed early.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/protestors-alicja-kwade-remove-art-basel-paris-sculpture-1234803329\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Print_approx_21_x_14_cm_ABP26__Public_Program__Public_Interaction_HiRes.jpg?w=1024″] A monumental sculpture by artist Alicja Kwade will be removed early from public display in Paris, where it was installed part of the public program of the Art Basel Paris fair. The piece is situated on the Avenue Winston Churchill, on the doorstep of the Grand Palais, where the fair is taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2212951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2212951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2212951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2212951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2212951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}