Animals—living, ornamental, and symbolic—are a recurring motif in Nina Beier’s work. The artist’s sculptures intervene in the circulation and consumption of mass-produced goods. She confronts mutable tropes found in a range of objects travelling between different geopolitical realities—many defined by their containing animal products. Beier’s plucking of goods from their virtual, imagistic existence is always timely. They become interesting to her precisely when their wild newness has peaked and they suddenly seem banal, cliché. This taming force defines human-animal relations in the West. Live animals, aside from their potential as food or raw material, are perpetually domesticated “as human companions”. John Berger, in the essay titled ‘Why Look At Animals?’, sees animals reduced to units of production and consumption in the global system of capital: “The category animal has lost its central importance. Mostly they have been co-opted into the family and into the spectacle.”
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Nina Beier, Empire, 2019, Empire‘ Porcelain dinnerware by B&G/Royal Copenhagen and metal wire bird cage, 94 × 44 × 33 cm. Photo by Kunst-dokumentation.com.
Courtesy the artist and Croy Nielsen
In Beier’s performance Tragedy (2011), a dog is instructed to ‘play dead’ on a Persian rug in a gallery. The artist describes the scene: “The dog lies in an immobile pose, as if under a spell, unknowingly performing its own end.” The highly trained, professional dogs recruited to bravely play dead in Tragedy are rewarded for suppressing their innate try-hard eagerness, only to sustain indifference. In the abstract—as animal capital—we observe these dogs as representative of the practice of selective breeding for attributes such as alertness and hair that won’t moult, of which they are exemplary. Feminist theorist Donna Haraway offers an exuberant analysis of this phenomena in her essay ‘Value-Added Dogs and Lively Capital’ (from which this essay borrows its title). She explains: “In the flesh and in the sign, dogs are commodities, and commodities of a type central to the history of capitalism.”
Carved in stone and found at the boundary of a property, guardian lions are a symbol of authority whose elevated stature are intended to enthrall any visitor. In Guardians (2018), statuesque marble lions are placed incongruously through the galleries and other spaces of the museum. Beier explains: “Something happens when guardian lions leave their designated place at the entrance to buildings. They seem lost or maybe free, or both. Detached from architecture and ornament, they are no longer domesticated and become depictions of wild animals.” Beier filled the negative spaces of carved marble around each lion’s mouth, mane and muscles with congealed soap and beard trimmings. These accoutrements of cosmetic grooming—an activity that is considered to distinguish humans from animals—making the proud, liberated beasts slightly uncouth.
"In Empire (2019), shown at Chart by Croy Nielsen, a community of birdcages, adorned with archetypal Western sloped roofs or simplistic oriental flourishes invoke the image of a captured, caged animal. But instead of budgies, these domestic structures house pieces of hand-painted Royal Danish dinnerware."
![](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=3072&h=2048&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=e135bdf5a1597411b7b53894d9b42c2e 3072w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=2560&h=1706&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=1a23581439974feef1cc14872991266e 2560w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=2048&h=1365&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=703d8ee0d28e70cc4558d0e498a65b83 2048w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=1920&h=1280&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=974f073822bf7b5e261aa2bf9392a0fa 1920w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=1536&h=1024&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=44e04d6b4d806e1ae8b0c04ae6799bfc 1536w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=1280&h=853&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=6e67e636257ec6425f25e85b87ed13d1 1280w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=1024&h=682&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=c78599aa2d34373984e745a24d77e3b7 1024w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=768&h=512&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=0d79e9eeb8df67975c6177d23ec43ac4 768w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=512&h=341&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=527d9c1511ed035a9a2033a631b3aac2 512w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=256&h=170&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=70e85125733a0681d46906c38be1ff1c 256w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-09_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_European_InteriorsII_2019-1.jpg?w=128&h=85&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175816&s=12810757ccbc886ef1521727cc4ee38a 128w)
Nina Beier, European Interiors II, 2019, installation view, Croy Nielsen, Vienna. Photo by Kunst-dokumentation.com
Courtesy the artist and Croy Nielsen
![](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=3072&h=2047&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=a826709ac1306dffa587d94a77dc43e4 3072w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=2560&h=1706&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=26cd2d4ba3f27e230a727ac6f1709387 2560w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=2048&h=1365&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=14360a04841973c7c5c47e9b47e5c612 2048w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=1920&h=1279&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=56c81be9d7ee348e825494936e5f1d41 1920w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=1536&h=1023&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=ff9849d2c343aef472994f3e86df2c7f 1536w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=1280&h=853&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=d092975c8e3f0d6eb7a5e3e2b69fb5a1 1280w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=1024&h=682&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=159a2470bfd4865c91dec89126e7cffb 1024w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=768&h=511&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=c99716aa54869378571aeec0703e8f74 768w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=512&h=341&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=a97097375f20193a151f9410f068fbd8 512w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=256&h=170&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=ecd3b0ac4fc9e3d3ff24b114f0a455d6 256w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Journal/Kopi-af-06_Croy_Nielsen_Nina_Beier_Empire_2_2019-1.jpg?w=128&h=85&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1626175937&s=96ad8ac632c84a83808d006b372c3b09 128w)
Nina Beier Empire, 2019, Empire‘ Porcelain dinnerware by B&G/Royal Copenhagen and metal wire bird cage, 49 × 98,5 × 45 cm. Photo by Kunst-dokumentation.com.
Courtesy the artist and Croy Nielsen
Gender tropes in contemporary domestic space naturally attract Beier’s scrutiny. In Beier’s series of exhibitions with the title European Interiors (2018–), pastel-coloured ceramic bathroom sinks—carrying connotations of feminine space—are arranged on the floor, unsupported, their drainage holes suggestively stuffed with fat cigars. It was the advent of capitalism that instituted the domestication of women. The notion of home, and its maintenance, seem to be a result of the devaluation of women’s labour into domestic work, reproduction, and caregiving—the design of interior spaces, furniture and appliances, compounding it. For animals, the interior, too, is a site of marginalisation, isolation, and dependence.
In Empire (2019), shown at Chart by Croy Nielsen, a community of birdcages, adorned with archetypal Western sloped roofs or simplistic oriental flourishes invoke the image of a captured, caged animal. But instead of budgies, these domestic structures house pieces of hand-painted Royal Danish dinnerware. Beier explains that “The birdcages replicate human architecture but in the sculpture they also double as dishwashing racks, both trapping and confining the china. Porcelain imported from China became collector’s items in Europe starting in the fourteenth century. Poor copies quickly followed, but it was only when the trade secret was finally cracked after 400 years that royal factories all over Europe started their production of knock-offs.” In Empire, tropes of domestication and domesticity are literally meshed. And as with all of Nina Beier’s work, she attempts to unravel the knot of soft power relations that coexist in the objects she chooses, exposing the transitory—and often latently violent—nature of society’s value formation in order to lay bare inbuilt social and economic structures—be it on a species, gender or global level.
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Nina Beier (b. 1975, DK) lives and works in Berlin.
Nina Beier’s multimedia installations, performative sculptures, and static assemblages incorporate everyday objects into theatrical still lifes that examine the cultural symbolism embedded in them.
She has been exhibited widely at institutions including Kunsthal Gent (BE), Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (CH), Kunsthaus Zürich (CH), ARoS (DK), Walker Art Center (US), Kunstwerke (DE), Metro Pictures (US), Swiss Institute (US), and Kunstverein Hamburg (DE). She has participated in Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (LV), Performa 15 (US), and the 13th Biennale de Lyon (FR).
![](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Kopi-af-PhotoBy_James-Langdon.jpg?w=2048&h=2730&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1623934038&s=ce90e7d0b7f9ccf937d0bfc8b5e56e32 2048w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Kopi-af-PhotoBy_James-Langdon.jpg?w=1920&h=2560&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1623934038&s=3e6f7c4d1bb6972870f802a5d61776ab 1920w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Kopi-af-PhotoBy_James-Langdon.jpg?w=1536&h=2048&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1623934038&s=efac87f3a80052f67900b1e38f975e7e 1536w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Kopi-af-PhotoBy_James-Langdon.jpg?w=1280&h=1706&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1623934038&s=463604e8478985a2eca9d1796e10b9dc 1280w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Kopi-af-PhotoBy_James-Langdon.jpg?w=1024&h=1365&q=82&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1623934038&s=5b48c21a94ebe206376b1f1ace132602 1024w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Kopi-af-PhotoBy_James-Langdon.jpg?w=768&h=1024&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1623934038&s=439ac57a30906376b413a8c50ae6e303 768w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Kopi-af-PhotoBy_James-Langdon.jpg?w=512&h=682&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1623934038&s=47dc7b4958d20c2bf3c0b0f6da4135bf 512w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Kopi-af-PhotoBy_James-Langdon.jpg?w=256&h=341&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1623934038&s=3f611757766907c7c8d8799841cd8c85 256w, https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/fluffy-tenrec/production/Kopi-af-PhotoBy_James-Langdon.jpg?w=128&h=170&q=60&fm=jpg&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1623934038&s=56bfdb03db690d340eb5c9f30ae96346 128w)
Vanessa Boni is an independent curator and art historian. With Kyla McDonald, she initiated a project dedicated to feminist exhibition-making and artist research (launching 2020). As curator at Spike Island, Bristol she curated solo exhibitions with Nina Beier and Mai-Thu Perret and led the 2018 Freelands Award with Veronica Ryan. Prior to this, Boni held curatorial positions at Eastside Projects and Liverpool Biennial.
Photo by James Langdon