Amalia Pica: Round table (and other forms) | Zurich Art Prize 2020 : Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland

Amalia Pica’s installations, sculptures, drawings, films and performances are characterized by a playful minimalist language of forms and multilayered content. The themes that Pica often incorporates into her artwork include verbal and nonverbal communication, as well as civic participation. How does communication work on the basis of language, symbols, objects and gestures? How do these relate to political and societal structures? And how can such structures be made visible, or even changed, by artistic interventions in communication media?

At Museum Haus Konstruktiv, under the title Round table (and other forms), Amalia Pica presented a newly produced work, along with an earlier one. They beared witness to this interest in the relationship between communication and artistic practice as civil participation. In both works, the artist purposefully exploreed the role of joy and pleasure in coping with the pressure that builds up as a result of bureaucratic structures or monotonous office work, for example. Thus, on the first two floors of the museum, an inspiring show had been developed, which wittily reflected on the form and function of office paraphernalia (conference tables, A4 paper sheets, plastic wallets and office stamps) as well as on their organizational power with regard to our social fabric. To no small extent, Pica’s (thought) experiment resonated in the time of COVID-19, which has also profoundly changed our everyday office life.