• Amalia Pica

    Catachresis on Paper
  • 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 – 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.
  • collages hanging on wall
  • amalia pica collage
    In her ongoing Catachresis on Paper series, Pica focuses on the rhetorical device known as catachresis, the application of terms that apply to things that do not have their own word, such as the teeth of a comb, leg of a chair, tongue of a shoe or elbow of a pipe. 
  • side view of Amalia Pica framed collage detail of collage elements
    Pica collages together colorful images of inanimate objects to explore the flexibility of language and its possibly comical consequences. The Catachresis works demonstrate the importance of humor in her practice and remind us of the great lengths we go to to achieve communication and understanding. 

  • 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 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; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.