Nicola L Exhibition

Elga Wimmer PCC

This event has ended.

ElgaWimmer PCC and curcioprojects presents Nicola L’s latest solo exhibition which looks on our connection to the natural world and by extension to each other. Featuring the sculptures Mirror Head, 2016, three Heads: Earth, Forrest and Fire each from 1991, with three sets of Penetrables: Sun and Moon, 1966-2012; Ocean and Earth, 2002, and Mediterranee, 1969-2012.

Nicola L has used basically the same HEAD for over 30 years: familiar but not recognizable, always in silhouette and profile without details – no eyes, no ears, no hair, an uncomplicated construction that provides full impact to their provocative insights. EARTH is written across a dark brown rough textured HEAD invoking a landscape, but, does EARTH mean ground or does it mean the planet as a whole? The austere Mirror Head reflects the viewer(s) – intricate, complex and descriptive individual(s) all brought together.

The Penetrables are hanging soft full body vinyl suits with arms, legs, and a pouch for a head that suggests to the viewer to “go inside” and try on the form like a new coat or a borrowed skin. Sun and Moon juxtapose a warm glowing orange as the Sun with a cold reflective silver representing the Moon while Ocean and Earth has a cool blue set aside a rich ocher.

The title for this exhibition is an homage to legendary critics/writers Pierre Restany and Frederick Ted Castle, both of whom were greatly inspired by Nicola L’s work. In 1996 Restany said of her work “– so that the things you felt passionately, organically, spontaneously, in the early 60s, are coming once again to the forefront of the scene. And through the linguistic screen of your work you are ready to confront the year 2000, the new Millennium …..” Castle’s article The Head, La Tete, La Cabeza, Il Capo, Der Kopf, 1989, talks directly about the Heads in all their iterations, “These heads are monolithic, transfixed, outlined and implacable. To me they symbolize the secrecy of human life, the utterly private quality of the enormously resourceful mentality.” The framed texts by both hang with the pieces as they form a part of the whole exhibit.

Currently, Nicola L is included in the Hauser&Wirth Collection in Henau, Switzerland which is on exhibit until this December. This past summer she participated in A Modest Proposal at Hauser&Wirth, NYC. In 2015 she was in the Tate Modern’s The World Goes Pop, Artevida at the Museu de Arte Moderno in Rio de Janeiro, The Plastic Collection, the permanent collection of the Art & Design Atomium Museum in Brussels; and in the Liverpool Biennial, 2014.