Alicja Kwade is a contemporary Berlin-based Polish artist known for her enigmatic sculptures and installations that explore concepts of space, time, science, and philosophy. She creates immersive experiences about discovery, begging viewers to question their perception of reality. “My efforts to understand and represent something I can barely grasp, and my failure to do so, bring forth my work,” said the artist. Born in Katowice, Poland, she studied at the University of the Arts in Berlin and graduated in 2005. While she was there, she did an exchange for one year at Chelsea College of Arts in London, England. In 2017, the artist participated at the 57th Venice Biennale Vive Arte Viva showcasing her cosmological work, Pars Pro Toto (2017). Kwade was selected for the 2019 Roof Garden Commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the seventh commissioned piece for the rooftop, following Huma Bhabha’s We Come in Piece (2018) and Cornelia Parker’s Transitional Object (PsychoBarn) (2016). The piece, titled ParaPivot, is the artist’s first solo exhibition at a museum in the US and comprises of two large steel sculptures that intersect and hold nine stones, sourced from around the world, that resemble planets. Her works can be found in the collections of Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, LACMA, Los Angeles, and Frankfurter Kunstverein, among others. The artist lives and works in Berlin, Germany.