Originally trained as an architect, Klara Lidén uses found material to create psychologically charged sculptures, paintings, and installations that mine the anxieties of the urban environment. Scavenging the streets of cities around the world, Lidén collects detritus to build sculptures that are often scaled to her own body. Her work alters the space of the museum by connecting it to the material and political realities of the world outside.

Untitled (Poster Painting) belongs to a series of paintings composed of layers of advertising posters the artist excised from city walls and lampposts. Retaining the roughness of the paper’s surface by layering the sheets and trapping the air pockets between them, Lidén obliterates the topmost image by painting over the unfurling stack. She hints at what lies beneath by folding over the first few layers.

Untitled (Poster Painting) is one of several works in the ICA/Boston collection that incorporate everyday found materials, using their expansiveness to provide, ultimately, novel ways to understand the world around us. It establishes a dialogue with works by such artists as Carol Bove, Alexandre da Cunha, Tara Donovan, and Annette Messager.

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