13.08.2024
Neue Nationalgalerie
As of 13 August 2024, Alicja Kwade’s Sculpture Goldelse (2021) is on view in the Neue Nationalgalerie Sculpture Garden. The 160 kg, gilded bronze figure makes formal and contextual references to the statue of Victoria, the goddess of victory, which stands atop Berlin’s Victory Column in Tiergarten park. City residents have nicknamed her Goldelse, something to the effect of “Golden Lizzy”.
Alicja Kwade (b. 1979) used photo-trigonometric scanning technology and a 3D model while creating the Goldelse (2021) sculpture to closely replicate Friedrich Drake’s Victoria figure mounted on Berlin’s Victory Column (1864–1873). In her work, Kwade stripped away the original statue’s traditional symbols of power – its wings, the laurel wreath held in its raised right hand, the staff with the Iron Cross in its left hand, and its eagle helmet. Without her military gear and martial gestures, Kwade’s Victoria, unlike the original, has lowered her arms. While bringing her down to earth, Kwade has also adapted the goddess of victory’s size to human dimensions. Now measuring 164 cm, the statue corresponds exactly to the artist’s height.
The statue’s artistic reinterpretation alludes to the eventful history of the Goldelse. Created as a symbol of Prussia’s victories, the figure was misappropriated under National Socialism and moved to its current location at the Großer Stern roundabout in Tiergarten, where it came to symbolise freedom for Berlin’s techno and queer scenes through the Love Parades in the 1990s.
Along with Daphne (1918) by Renée Sintenis and Venus Negra (1958) by Marianna Nuñez del Prado, Goldelse by Alicja Kwade is the third sculpture by a woman artist to be installed in the Neue Nationalgalerie Sculpture Garden.
As part of Sound in the Garden, the sculpture will be officially unveiled in the Sculpture Garden on Thursday, 22 August 2024, with live music accompaniment by ROSIN and Stabat Kater and DJ sets by lariferrarie & Rico Sperl. The artist is in attendance.
Please register: Admission is free, but registration via the pretix-Website is required.
The Goldelse is now permanently exhibited in the Neue Nationalgalerie Sculpture Garden thanks to this generous gift made by Berlin artist Alicja Kwade and Pace Gallery.
