Nika Neelova. Cascade

With works by Isa Genzken, Maria Bartuszová, Heinz Frank, and more

In Cascade, the British artist Nika Neelova transports us to a world in which time seems out of joint: her works poetically blend past, present, and future. In the exhibition, Neelova combines her works with additional objects from the collection and loans from eminent artists to weave a singular narrative.

An artist unearthing traces

Nika Neelova was born in Moscow in 1987 and has lived in London since 2008. Working exclusively with found objects and materials, she has a remarkable gift for scrutinizing perfectly ordinary things from a wide variety of perspectives and presenting them in novel ways. In conducting a kind of archaeology, she digs up not just finds but, more importantly, their stories.

Rethinking time

Neelova wants her art to convey an experience of the idea of time. To this end, her works playfully stimulate visitors’ inquisitiveness and curiosity. Time, she believes, is nonlinear, and her works are like artifacts that exert a powerful pull, carrying the beholders along. History here seems to move in recurring loops.

Additional artists and loans in the exhibition

In Cascade, Neelova interweaves her own works with archaeological finds and works of art from the collections, which become integral parts of her utopian vision. The display features works by other eminent artists including Isa Genzken, Maria Bartuszová, Marisa Merz, Heinz Frank, and many more. Also part of the exhibition are prehistoric and ancient artifacts as well as ritual objects from the cultural history collections of the Salzburg Museum and the Museum of Mining and Gothic Art Leogang. In this way, the show picks up on Salzburg’s material heritage, and in particular on its history of salt mining.