On an Essay on Liberation

The work of Lina Viste Grønli deals with language, semiotics, and strategies of the sculptural. It investigates our systems of social reference, using appropriation and collage techniques to challenge our understanding of concepts. For the Kunstverein’s annual editions, Viste Grønli has made a unique piece entitled On an Essay on Liberation, consisting of a shoe, two chewing gums, and the book An Essay on Liberation, by Herbert Marcuse. The book, first published in 1969, argues that traditional ideas of human freedom have been rendered obsolete by advanced industrial society. Viste Grønli's piece forms part of a series of her object installations, each of which combines everyday objects with found books, creating a series of paradoxes of meaning and representation. The set is displayed in full in On Books, published by Weinspach in 2017.