Alicja Kwade in Conversation with Ann-Kathrin Riedl

Alicja Kwade: My mother was a professor at the university, specializing in Slavic studies and cultural theory, and my father ran one of the few privately owned art galleries in socialist Poland.

I don’t remember much consciously because I was a child, living in my own world with my cousins. I didn’t feel like anything was missing. But I did know that America and Australia were these big dreams. At my grandmother’s place – she had the only TV in our old apartment block – we watched Dynasty. My mother was in love with David Chamberlain from The Thorn Birds. At our neighbor Eva’s place, Cherry, “Cherry Lady” by Modern Talking played on repeat. I always had this image in my head of a glossy red cherry that smelled like plastic. And when my Aunt Margot came to visit from West Germany, everyone was ecstatic. When she drove through the streets in her West German car, it felt like another world was pulling up.

There was this kind of promise: that somewhere out there, people were beautiful and happy. I don’t know if I truly believed it, but the allure was there, the temptation of a life soaked in sunlight and coconut oil.

I’m not sure it was desire, really. It was more necessity. My parents knew full well that under those conditions, in that regime, in that country, there was no future. No freedom. No autonomy. We grew up in Katowice, then one of the most polluted cities in Europe due to the heavy coal and steel industry. There was certainly a longing to get out of the filth and breathe clean air.

What I’ve learned is this: At any point in life, it’s possible to attempt the impossible. My parents were in their 40s when they left the country with only what you’d take for a three-day vacation, with two children – 8 and 11 – no language, no job, no documents. Nothing. That experience is shared by refugees across the globe, and I believe it’s essential to remember what tremendous courage and strength that takes.
Esspecially in contrast to the passive comfort in which so many live – those who so easily judge others who’ve risked everything.

Well, I’m an artist, not a politician, though I can imagine that path in another life.

Right now, I’m keeping my distance. That might change. Who knows – maybe I will go into politics one day. Because this absurd theater of power and delusion is unbearable. The inequality, especially toward women, in a highly developed country like Germany, is infuriating. Still, I remain an artist. And I try, at times, to make reality visible through my work.

There aren’t really direct themes in my work, and certainly not desire as such. It’s more that longing is always the engine behind the work. It drives everything.

Art is, in a way, an addiction. You dig for something you can never quite reach, a state that may not even exist, a liberation from something, you can’t define. That’s the force behind creation, at all costs.

I believe we only have partial control over our lives. It’s all part of a vast chain of cause and effect and random events. But yes, every choice we make – going somewhere or not, saying yes or no, meeting someone – leads us down a different path. A different branch of fate.

That’s too intimate a question, and I’m not sure I can answer it. But I do know what it feels like to make the right decision: I have to be afraid. I have to tremble – and do it anyway. Then I know it was right.
It always involves risk. I have to be willing to give everything. Otherwise, I’ll always feel I didn’t try hard enough. For me, it’s essential to keep leaving my comfort zone. The worst decisions were the “reasonable” ones made out of fear. The right ones feel right immediately. Even if that’s irrational.

Longing is a kind of addiction – and addiction, as we know, can block us from many things.

Longing always has an element of the unfulfilled, which can be dangerous. I tear that society longs for identity, for “home,” for “roots” – concepts I find highly problematic and even dangerous. That’s something I try to address in my work, to interrupt in some way.I believe in the equality of all people- in the 99.9% of our DNA that we all share. If I have a longing, it’s that people might finally realize how similar we all are. That the idea of superiority based on origin or appearance is ridiculous.

Not even a little bit.

“Everyone wants to live – but no one knows why.” (Heidegger)

That’s a hard one. I don‘t really see my path as a “career,” and my works seem to follow their own trajectory. But yes, the Venice Biennale in 2017 was important. 2019 was a milestone when I exhibited on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum. Another key work was the DNA piece shown in an Italian gallery in 2021 – though I actually conceived it in 2019. That work crystallizes what my practice is often about: the search for information, for total knowledge – a search that always ends in a void. And now, in 2025, my recent show at Pace Gallery marked another significant step for me.

I wouldn’t call it a sacrifice. I wanted this – and I want more. I can’t stop. I’m addicted to it. I want to make art at all costs. Working in the studio, being alone with my ideas – that actually makes me happy. But yes, it can be frustrating. As a woman, you’re still seen as weaker, less capable. I’ve learned to laugh at it. I still get comments like, “You’re such a small, delicate woman – how do you make such large works?” It reveals so much about the clichés that are so deeply ingrained. As if male artists carry their sculptures on their backs and do everything by hand. It’s absurd. And I still get asked how I manage everything – with my kid, the travel , the shows. I don’t think male artist get those questions.

I’ve always been very hard on myself – and still am. Maybe it’s pathological. But I’ve always believed that to be truthful, you have to give everything. For years, I worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week. I barely ate. I worked nights. But that was what I wanted.Recently, I’ve become gentler. I give myself time – for me, for my family. But I’m still driven, still impatient – especially with myself. I’m working on it. Trying not to drive everyone around me insane. Life is too short to constantly run after something. And yet I keep trying to be fast, to squeeze as many lives as possible into this one, which already feels too short.

It’s not like you choose to explore yourself through art. In fact, often you want to avoid yourself, to forget yourself, to disappear. Art becomes a filter, a distillate, a kind of medium for everything that crashes in. Sometimes it channels the feelings of others more than your own.But no – art is not therapy. It’s not self-help. It’s not a path to happiness. If anything, it can destroy you. It can devastate. It’s not a choice. It’s something that’s there. It can be a disease – or pure bliss. I do think honesty is essential. Honesty with yourself and with others. And as an artist, that honesty must be absolute. Even if what’s honest is the refusal to feel anything at all.