Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade’s work is elegant, rigorous and highly experiential. Using a wide range of media, Kwade creates sculptures and installations that reflect on time, perception and scientific inquiry. With equal parts poetry and critical acumen, she calls into question the systems designed to banish doubt from the world and make sense of an otherwise unfathomable universe. Ultimately, Kwade seeks to heighten both the mystery and the absurdity of the human condition in order to enhance our powers of self-reflection.

For the Met – her first solo exhibition at a museum in the United States – she has created two sculptures using steel and stone to evoke a miniature solar system, a piece of space that has settled temporarily on the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden.