Shield of Achilles is a broken cast of an Achilles branded winter tyre made to resemble a fragmented shield one might see in a museum of ancient history. It is made in reference to the gilded Shield of Achilles made by John Flaxman in the 1820’s. This in turn was inspired by the legendary shield made for Achilles by Hephaestus, described in the Iliad as a mirror of the world of gods and men, depicting scenes of war and peace.

By turning the myth of Achilles into a tyre brand, the manufacturer likely wants to generate a simple image of strength, power and success. In this work the wheel is broken and presented as a fragment - a broken off Achilles heel. As such we are made to consider the weakness of the mythical hero, and the shadow side of the industry that borrows his name.

‘It took me a while as a sculptor to figure out a way to approach bronze as a material, and how to work with (or perhaps against) the cultural and historical legacies the material carries with it. What was new for me with ‘Shield of Achilles’ was to actually make an object that had the absolute look and feel of bronze. There is something very raw about the wire wheel finish and polished details that really allows you to connect with the material in its purest form. It makes me think of statues in public where the bronze is polished back to a bright sheen where countless hands have touched them, and that are made much more precious for it.

I’m always looking for things that have the potential to become something more fantastical than the sum of its parts, small objects that tell big stories. The material change is what conveys this transformation. Something happens when rubber turns solid, sharp and shiny. When light becomes heavy. It allows us to see beyond the known, everyday aspects of the object, and to see it as something else. The weight of bronze, both physically and culturally, fundamentally changes the nature of the thing. The material transitions within this, from smooth surfaces to rough and broken edges, is to me a real celebration of materiality in and of itself. An erasure of hierarchy. Equal attention is paid to the rough as to the soft.’

Katja Larsson is a Swedish artist based in London. She graduated from The Slade School of Fine Art (MFA Sculpture) in 2015 and received her BA(Hons) in Fine Art Photography from The Glasgow School of Art 2013; the same year she was shortlisted for the Saatchi Gallery’s New Sensations Award. In 2017 she was awarded the EIB Institute’s residency The Imprint of Man, Representing the Anthropocene at The European Investment Bank in Luxembourg, and in 2018 she was presented at Borås Konstmuseum in the exhibition SNITTET.

Katja Larsson was selected by Open Call.

KATJA LARSSON

‘SHIELD OF ACHILLES’

Bronze

41cm x 41cm x 7cm (HWD)

Lockdown N.1 - 2020

Edition of 8

For further enquiries about this work,
please email info@londonbronzeeditions.com