Karl Holmqvist

Karl Holmqvist was born in Västerås, Sweden, and is based in Berlin. His practice begins where language unravels. Words, once functional, turn rhythmic, half poem and half echo, lifted from songs, slogans, and stray conversations. He observes language the way some people follow the weather, tracing patterns that reveal a culture’s mood swings. Holmqvist treats language as both signal and static—part poem, part structure—using it to question how meaning circulates and evolves. His work has been shown at the Venice Biennale, MoMA, and Camden Arts Centre. For Side Hustle, Holmqvist turns this linguistic drift toward design, extending it into functional objects: a mirrored nightstand, a yoga mirror, and a make-up mirror, each commenting on the role it serves while addressing its user directly. Their mirrored surfaces, etched with text, continue his exploration of repetition and reflection in physical form. The result is both sculpture and satire—an outsider’s dry, cerebral reflection on Los Angeles aspiration. The nightstand repeats EAT PRAY LOVE, that pop-spiritual mantra offset by sharper inscriptions like CAN’T STAND IT and HAND MAID’S TABLE, turning décor into dialogue. The Make-Up Mirror stages a potential day—WAKE UP, MAKE UP, MAKE OUT, PASS OUT—while the Yoga Mirror II riffs BREAK ON THRU THE LOOKING GLASS TO THE OTHER SIDE / HERE’S LOOKING AT U, KID, appropriating fragments of pop and film culture. Deadpan and deliberate, these mirrored works literalize reflection, intervening in daily ritual so that vanity, self-deprecation, and self-awareness shimmer together on the same surface.