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Artist Nina Beier: Look Closer
Nina Beier started as a photographer but soon moved on to work with sculpture and performance. From her studio in Copenhagen, Denmark, she compares her artistic process to a camera trying to focus: “You feel like you recognise it and you know what you’re looking at, but then it opens up in a different way. It shows this foggy version of itself where you start understanding the complexity of the object.” Throughout her work, Beier returns to objects that have lived many lives – bronze busts, marble countertops, Hermes ties, and remote-controlled luxury cars. But rather than transforming them completely, she destabilises them, revealing hidden stories and relationships.
During her childhood, Nina Beier lived partly in Mozambique, where her parents worked for a Danish aid organisation. Beier developed an early awareness of how objects, people, and power circulate across borders. That experience shaped her suspicion of simple narratives: “I’ve always been wary of anything that’s said or done in the name of righteousness.” For Beier, art is not about providing answers or being mediated. Instead, it should create situations where meaning remains open and unresolved: “I’m trying to unlock something in these objects,” she continues, “where they basically become signs in a way.”
In Nina Beier's work, seemingly ordinary, familiar objects can trigger a shared visual language with the viewer. Books scattered on a floor might evoke a study hall, a graveyard, or a flock of birds in flight. The objects have their own language and the ability to generate images and associations beyond themselves. This makes Beier cautious about overexplaining her work: “What happens when we start mediating the art is, of course, that we’re speaking on top of that language.” In an ideal world, she adds, she would rather people encounter the work first and discover their own associations before any explanation intervenes.
Nina Beier (b. 1975, Aarhus, Denmark) lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark and Berlin, Germany. Beier has presented solo exhibitions at ARoS, Denmark (2026); Bozar, Brussels (2025); Museuo Tamayo, Mexico City (2024); Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki (2024); Highline, New York (2022); Rønnebæksholm, Denmark (2020); Spike Island, Bristol, England (2018); Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany (2015); Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania (2015); and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California (2010). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions including the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (2024); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California (2022); the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia (2019); YUZ Museum, Shanghai, China (2018); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2014 and 2013); and Tate Modern, London, England (2012 and 2007). Her work has been featured in major international exhibitions, including the São Paulo Bienal, Brazil (2021); Glasgow International, Scotland (2021); the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Latvia (2020); 20th Sydney Biennale, Australia (2016) and 13th Biennale de Lyon, France (2015).
Nina Beier was interviewed by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen at her studio in Copenhagen in April 2026 and at Bozar in Brussels in October 2026.
Camera: Jarl Therkelsen Kaldan
Edited and produced by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen
Music via Upright:
Guitar Hi 1 Reverse by Drew J. Lerdal, Darren Mark Drew and Brian Burke Reidinger
Urban Hermit by Paul Aigner
Rostockk by Paul Elliott
Reversed Reflections by Maria Martine Jadg and Ida Duelund Hansen
Iorana by Penelope Fasy
Leaving Me by Anthony Francisco Ranere and Christian Campbell Celaya
Moments of Solitude by Bjarni Biering Margeirsson
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026
Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond.
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