Yaekahngai

Nika Kupyrova — Yaekahngai Opening day, March 23, 2021, 12 – 6 pm Exhibition, March 24 – April 23, 2021 With strategies of revisiting, multiple reiteration, and variation of one and the same topic, Nika Kupyrova appropriates everyday objects, found images and texts as well as phenomena circulating in the pop cultural field. Even though the artist always approaches her themes with a curiosity that spans across disciplines, her works can be read, above all, as sculptural and installation-based explorations into how things are set, laid, and placed in space—hence, the composition of spatial contexts. Kupyrova employs exhibition spaces as stages to draw her audience’s attention to her objects—often created by hand, yet with an industrial appearance—but also to encourage a narrative among the exhibits, between the protagonists of the play. The artist tells stories. Nika Kupyrova’s sculptures conjure complete universes. They are often something else than what they pretend to be: Material is imitated with other materials, familiar mass products turn into unique items, form replaces a new form, visual similarities cause irritation. For Kunstraum Lakeside, Kupyrova develops a new installation with the enigmatic title Yaekahngai. In the exhibition she delves into alternative realities and parallel timelines. The screen, the ubiquitous interface of our time, serves here as a portal to ghost worlds, astral journeys, and psychedelia beyond our imagination. Nika Kupyrova (b. 1985 in Ukraine) lives and works in Vienna and Prague. www.nikakupyrova.com