KUBEN / THE CUBE
Project by Åsa Lie, 1987-1990. Stockholm, Sweden.
Maquette, sculpture in 7 parts, performances and film with the support of Filmverkstan / The Swedish Film Institute.
Kuben / The Cube performed 2 times in Rålambshovsparken and 3 times at Odenplan in the centre of Stockholm. The final performance was documented on 16mm and video. The film Rålambshovsparken, Odenplan, Odenplan, Odenplan was edited by Åsa Lie, and created through a process of deconstruction, distortion, fast-forwarding, and disruptions.
See below excerpts from talks between Merzedes Sturm-Lie (artist, daughter) and Åsa Lie, as well as between Nele Luyts (Consultant Archives at CKV / M HKA) and Åsa Lie.
Maquette for the Cube, Stockholm, 1987. Filmed by Mathieu Hendrickx 12th of February 2025. "The pieces have strange shapes. They are individuals and when you put them together they form a perfect community. They have to be different to create some kind of dynamic. A unity in differences." (Åsa Lie)
MERZEDES STURM-LIE (ARTIST & DAUGHTER) TALKING WITH ÅSA LIE. BRUSSELS, FEBRUARY 12th 2025
Merzedes Sturm-Lie: You were still an art student when you worked with this project. What drew you to the cube as a form?
Åsa Lie: The cube is a basic shape in geometry and architecture. It's something you play with when you're a kid. In many cultures the symbol for earth, stability and the solid. There is, for example, Da Vinci's human being standing within a cube. You have the cube, the circle and how the body fits in. When you learn how to draw a body, it's part of your education. Not only is it very present in mathematics. We live in boxes, basically. Many peoples talk about the four corners of the world as a square, north - south - east - west. The cube or square is, how can I say... omnipresent in human life.
MSL: You created your own cube and went out into public space. Was this work a critique towards the traditional ways of producing, selling and showing art as a commercial commodity within the white cube?
ÅL: No, The Cube wasn't intended as a critique of the art world. I wanted the work to be out and about in the city, so that anyone could be confronted with it regardless of if they were interested in art or not. It was also my intention to split and break a perfect cube into shapes which are harder to describe, not perfect, even ugly...
MSL: But you were interested in Land Art, performance and public space. So, even if you weren’t consciously opposing galleries or the commercial art market, you were moving away from monumental art, or art meant for walls, and more toward conversation and interaction…?
ÅL: Yes and no, I mean, it can be monumental. My Land Art piece The blue line is very monumental, but I knew it would disappear during the first autumn after it had been finished. That was part of the concept. It was painted with a non-toxic gouache which wouldn't hurt the biological balance in the quarry. I also knew that because of the autumn rain the water would rise and fall, rise and fall, until the line slowly dissolved. I wasn't anti-monumental, or anti-gallery, it simply didn't seem attractive to me. That's probably one good reason why I've hardly made any money as an artist he-he...
MSL: In a way, some might see the cube as a kind of temple. The white cube is a temple of contemporary art. And whilst you were working on The Cube, Jadran was working with the Pyramids, which are… temples of life and death.
ÅL: Yes, and later Jadran made Labyrinths, a series of paintings. We were both interested in architectural components as well as different types of rituals. Not just religious ones, but also everyday rituals, or social rituals. They're not necessarily so serious, intellectual or metaphysical.
MSL: It's interesting how architectural shapes are used for, or can become, spaces for holiness, meaning, contemplation.
ÅL: A function in our society. When travelling, we always visited sacred places and buildings. Cemeteries, churches, mosques, synagogues... Our artist book and project, Panagia Gorgoepikoos, is built on a small Byzantine church in Athens. We also searched for mausoleum and grave assignments with an advertisement and a poster. We read a lot about different rituals, practices and thoughts around death in different cultures. I have a later piece titled "Cloud of gas" with photos taken at The New Crematorium (by Architect Johan Celsing) at The Woodland Cemetery (Skogskyrkogården) in Stockholm, where my Swedish grandfather Bror Emil Hjortzberg was cremated and buried. You mentioned temples. For Muslims the most important religious place is in Mecca and there they have, eh...
MSL: The Kaaba?
ÅL: Yes. Kaaba means cube in Arabic. The Kaaba is a black cube building in the centre of a mosque in Mecca. Whilst visiting Cairo in 2009, we made a book of drawings titled Passport 2 based on the Kaaba, sound, language and wind.
MSL: The cube returns as a motif in different works.
Mathieu Hendrickx filming Merzedes & Åsa talking about the Cube
NELE LUYTS (CONSULTANT ARCHIVES AT CKV / M HKA) TALKING WITH ÅSA LIE. BRUSSELS, APRIL 9th 2025
Nele Luyts: Are there people inside the different pieces?
Åsa Lie: Yes, one person in each. I made a very light wooden frame and covered it with papier mâché from newspapers. It’s not so dark inside, because the paper is a bit see-through. To let in more light, I made many small holes with pins that you don't see from the outside. A few holes are a bit bigger, so that the performer can look out. Here, you can see The Cube when all the parts are gathered on Odenplan, a busy square in the centre of Stockholm. Sometimes we started the performance with each of the seven parts hanging out in different places nearby, and then they would slowly come together and gather into the cube. Other times we started with the cube standing completely still and quiet for a while in the middle of the square. After some time they began to move out of the cube formation and spread out. They improvised. I didn't say 'you move first' or 'you go there'.
NL: They were free to do what they wanted.
The film Rålambshovsparken, Odenplan, Odenplan, Odenplan by Åsa Lie, 1989-90
ÅL: Yes, sometimes they moved in pairs or even a group of three while communicating, chatting… Passersby could hear that somebody's talking, but didn't really understand what was going on immediately. Another thing that happened was that some of them decided, like you see here, to go and stand silently at the bus station for example. Just spend some time there amongst those waiting. It was quite interesting to see how it developed, slowly… First, people thought, what's this? Many were looking, and then moving on or passing by as if it was invisible. It became part of the environment. People even started to lean on it.
NL: Did you select the newspapers with a specific focus, or was it random?
ÅL: It was daily newspapers. I built it two times because it wasn’t stable enough and broke. The first time I used random pages. The second time I selected personal advertisements, e.g. looking for an apartment or selling a car..
NL: Was there also a video?
ÅL: Yes, as the project developed, we thought that could be fun. I collaborated with two filmmaker friends and received support from the Swedish Film Institute, the equivalent of VAF in Belgium. We used 16mm to film from the outside and video for the inside shots. I did the editing myself.
NL: And the film tells more of a story from the inside view than from the outside?
ÅL: It tells the story of the individual pieces travelling. Some of them had a videocamera inside and filmed through the little holes. The sculptures "studied" the passersby looking at them.. One actually took the metro. The whole thing is shaking. The frame is shaking… you see people looking.
Åsa Lie with Nele Luyts in the Jadran Stum & Åsa Lie Private Foundation archive, April 2025