Amalia Pica

Overview
Asamble, 2015. Performance at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
'Asamble', Performance at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2015

Encompassing sculpture, performance, installation, video, and drawing, Amalia Pica’s work examines systems of communication and what brings people together. Using seemingly simple materials and found objects, she investigates human modes of interaction, especially our desire to be understood and the accompanying pleasures and failures. Pica considers shared visual codes associated with verbal and nonverbal language systems – often incorporating playful signifiers of collective expression and cultural celebration such as bunting and confetti – ultimately exploring cultural intimacy and the political potential of joy. As a result, her work has a lightness of touch and a feel-good quality, which Pica prioritizes for its power to draw viewers into a conversation.

 

Born during Argentina’s “Dirty War” in which the dictatorship persecuted suspected political dissidents, Pica’s work also addresses techniques of state control and explores the relationship between form and politics, as well as history and representation. Her performances and viewer-activated works examine how civic participation and social forms can provide opportunity for creative expression and can even act as a form of resistance within oppressive social systems. More recently, she has turned her attention to investigating the systems that are ever-present and ingrained in contemporary society, especially bureaucracy and modes of assembly.

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Works
Keepsake #2, 2024
Biography
'Joy in Paperwork', Stamp ink on A4 Paper, 2016 (Installation view)
'Joy in Paperwork', Stamp ink on A4 Paper, 2016 (Installation view)

Amalia Pica was born in 1978 in Neuquén, Argentina and currently lives and works in London. The artist received a BA from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes P.P. in Buenos Aires in 2003 and attended graduate school at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam.

 

Pica has had solo exhibitions at Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2023); Fondazione Memmo, Rome (2022); Brighton CCA (2022); Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2020); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (2019); The New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK (2019); Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth, Australia (2018); The Power Plant, Toronto (2017); NC Arte, Bogotá, Colombia (2017); Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany (2016): Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (2014); List Visual Arts Center, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2013): Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2013); Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Neuquén, Argentina (2013); Kunsthalle St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland (2012); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2012); Malmo Konsthall, Malmo, Sweden (2010); among many others.

 

She has participated in group exhibitions at FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France (2020); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2019); Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria (2019); Royal Academy of Art, London (2019); Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich (2019); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Buenos Aires, Argentina (2019); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019), Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK (2019); Hayward Gallery, London (2018); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts (2018); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2017); Tate Modern, London (2016); in addition to many others.

 

Her work was included in the Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2016); The Ungovernables: New Museum Triennial, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2015); and ILLUMInations, curated by Bice Curiger, 54th Venice Biennale (2011).

 

Public commissions include University of North Carolina, North Carolina; Semaphores, King’s Cross, London; and Sipping colors, De Pijp Station, Amsterdam.

 

Pica received the Zürich Art Prize (2020); Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award (2011); Illy Prize, Art Rotterdam (2011); and participated in the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation’s Grants and Commissions Program (2011). She has had residencies at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, Colorado (2017); Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California (2012); Uqbar Foundation at Casa Vecina, Mexico City (2011); Markus Lennikus, Baeurmarkt 9, Vienna (2010); and BijlmAIR, Centrum Beeldende Kunst Zuidoost, Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam (2007); among others.

 

Amalia Pica’s work can be found in the permanent collections of Tate Collection, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museo Nacional de Bellas Arte Neuquén, Neuquén, Argentina; KADIST Art Foundation, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Frac-Collection Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France; Fundação De Serralves, Porto, Portugal and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

 

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Exhibitions
Publications