NEW YORk, NY.- For artist Klara Liden’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States, The Museum of Modern Art presents Projects 89: Klara Liden, a site-specific sculptural installation and new performative video, as part of its ongoing Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series. Liden (Swedish, b. 1979) is known for her installations and videos that respond to specific architectural environments. For Projects 89, she has created a towering construction that conjures a vision of a city in decay and is a play on the prevalence of the cube in modern art. To build this work, she brought materials from the urban landscape—scaffolding, discarded cardboard, sheetrock, and the tar paper found on many New York City rooftops—into the gallery, blurring the line between exterior and interior space. The bundles of recycled cardboard highlight the massive volume of accumulation created by contemporary consumer culture. By transforming everyday materials and discarded goods into the building blocks of her work, Liden finds value in ruin.

Accompanying the installation is a new video featuring the artist and the hypnotic music of Tvillingarna, a Stockholm-based music duo whose members are Paul Siegerhall and Andreas Nelson. Liden’s low-tech video shares the “do-it-yourself” aesthetic of her installation.

The exhibition, on view February 25 through June 8, 2008, is organized by Eva Respini, Associate Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art. The Projects series is coordinated by Kathy Halbreich, Associate Director, The Museum of Modern Art.

Liden, who lives and works in Berlin, studied at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Konstfack, Stockholm, Universität der Kunst, Berlin, and the School of Architecture, Royal School of Technology, Stockholm. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including solo projects at Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2008); Hayward Gallery, London (2007); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2007); and Reena Spaulings Gallery, New York. Her work has been included in such group exhibitions as After Nature, The New Museum, New York (2008); Second Moscow Biennial (2007); Street Behind the Cliché, Witte de With, Rotterdam (2006); Fourth Berlin Biennial (2006); and When Humor Becomes Painful, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich (2005). Her video works Paralyzed (2004) and Moonwalk (2008) were acquired by MoMA in 2008.