In her solo exhibition Walk the Line (2015) at Dallas Contemporary, Nadia Kaabi-Linke presents six diverse projects that document current culture climates while simultaneously serving as a reminder of the past as omnipresent in the now. For Impunities, she worked with women and men affected by domestic violence. Using forensic techniques to cast impressions of their scars in glass, she creates physical manifestations of the pain they endured. For Bicycle, the artist documents the changing shadow of a bicycle over the span of a day as a critique of the highly masculine futurist art movement, which aimed to present the merger between modern technology and man. The Altarpiece, inspired by the history of WWII violence on the outside walls of a former bunker in Berlin, shines a spotlight on the brutal past of the city that is more and more wiped out by processes of gentrification. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be a new installation and performance titled “Walk the Line” (2015), dealing with the border separating Texas and Mexico.
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Both heartbreak and resilience permeated much of the work of Berlin-based artist Nadia Kaabi-Linke, who uses numerous materials to explore themes of memory and place. Concurrent with four other exhibitions at the Dallas Contemporary, Kaabi-Linke’s was the quietest in some ways, although hers also had the most movement, as volunteers strung colorful string between two columns in a repetitive loop, the long periods of walking appearing almost meditative or penitent in its unending motion. The way the artist was able to transform pain into beauty was stunning, addressing abuse at both the domestic and political levels through poetic language or gesture. For example, she traces a section of the Berlin Wall in Chinese ink and frames it as a triptych for “Altarpiece.” This exhibition, along with the others on display this fall, also mark a new focus for the Dallas Contemporary, as it was the first series of shows overseen by Justine Ludwig, the institution’s new director of exhibitions and senior curator.
— Lauren Smart (Dallas Observer)
Nadia Kaabi-Linke makes work similarly based on memory, geography, and place, but using diaphanous materials. Situated in a large open space at the DC between Abidi’s moving images and the SYNCHRODOGS’ hyperreal photographs, Kaabi-Linke’s thread-, hair-, and language-based works, large anamorphic drawing of a bicycle, and painted triptych are refreshingly hands-on in orientation. Kaabi-Linke’s six projects, located in the front gallery, are light and precious in presentation but heavy-hitting in conceptual impact, as they deal with national borders, war ruins, and identity politics.
— Charissa Terranova (Hyperallergic)