Amalia Pica
(1978) was in high school, she had very good grades and was hesitating between studying Art and Sociology.
“'Are you going to continue art?
Oh really?'
The question sounded like it was about to ruin my life.
Until I went on an exchange to Australia and a teacher told me: 'Well, as an artist, you not only use your emotions and your hands, you can also investigate.'
And here I am,” she tells
Ñ
from London, where she lives.
Pica - who has already exhibited at the Tate, the Venice Biennale, the MoMA and the Guggenheim, among other key spaces - is now exhibiting his
first solo exhibition in New York
and, in parallel, a presentation in the
sector of individual projects , from the ARCO Madrid 2024 fair
.
Expanded Classroom
, his exhibition at the Tanya Bonakdar gallery in the Big Apple, has as its star a
green chalkboard installation
in which he addresses the way in which
school liberates and limits us
and invites us to try ways to
transform it
.
Meanwhile, to the Spanish fair, he brought a series of works on other institutions, more precisely, on
bureaucracy
,
with the Ultraviolet gallery of Guatemala.
“The idea is
to inject a little joy and enjoyment into the burden
of paperwork,” she says.
Everything has its history and its ties.
When Pica finished high school in Cipolletti, Río Negro, she moved to Buenos Aires to study at the Prilidiano Pueyrredón School of Fine Arts.
He graduated and taught classes.
“It was difficult for me to stop being a student.
In art, you start alone.
Nobody tells you if you got a 0 or 10. So I think that there, while
I was teaching with a teaching degree and was 'deinstitutionalized' as an artist
, I started to think about how school and other institutions condition us,” she adds.
Amalia Pica Portrait_Courtesy CC Foundation
Aula Grande
, the installation at Tanya Bonakdar, recreates a domestic environment with everyday objects, chairs, cups, books, a guitar, a briefcase, all in slate green and chalk white outlines.
The proposal is
to travel to childhood
, yes, but also to
review textbook myths.
“It is
a learning surface
.
We think that education is what you have to start with to become emancipated.
TRUE.
But, at the same time, the school is a machine for reproducing the
status quo
.
It is paradoxical but where change begins, reproduction reigns
”, He explains.
Detail of "Aula Grande".
By Amalia Pica.
Courtesy: Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Pierre Le Hors
To check that, he included
colored chalk
in the work.
The idea is that the public, of whatever age, takes the reins and starts playing seriously.
She already painted
the San Martín horse
of the monument in the city of Neuquén white (with chalk) and she dyed the
House of Tucumán with yellow lights
, as school books describe it, although in reality it is white.
The thing about the chalks in
Aula Grande
also seeks to “go
against the intimidation
that some contemporary art provokes, against that '
I don't understand it'”
thing , he adds.
How
we learn to look, understand and even imagine
, how we communicate and relate, are the great themes of Pica's work, which integrates collections from the Tate, the MoMa, the Guggenheim in New York and the National Museum of Fine Arts
.
Arts of Neuquén, among others.
Amalia Pica, Drawings with stamps, about bureaucracy.
Courtesy of Ultraviolet gallery.
The artist explains: "All institutions have that
double face
that looks so good in school, which is where we deposit our
desires for change while we perpetuate
what is established."
"In the case of bureaucracy, its weight can be tremendous," he clarifies. "But, as an immigrant, I know that
dealing with it is as complicated as being left out
."
I lived for more than a decade in London without finished papers.
In process
.
They told me that it was not clear what I lived on and that I traveled a lot.
Well, I made my living from art, which involved traveling a lot.
“My lawyer advised me not to travel for a while and, in the end, it worked.”
Sculpture.
From the Pisapapeles series, by Amalia Pica.
Photo: Courtesy of Ultraviolet gallery.
At that time, he began to create drawings based on
stamps
that friends from different parts of the world sent him.
“Sent”, “Cancelled”, “Rejected”.
Pica transforms them into beautiful compositions.
With the word
Accuse,
for example, he created shining stars.
And with
Paid,
a little princess dress?
In total, he made more than 1,000 pieces that make up the series
¡Qué viva el papeleo!
, exhibited, in part, at ARCO, curated by José Esparza Chong Cuy and Manuela Moscoso.
“There are those drawings, a small mural and some of the
embroidery
that I did
on enlarged drawings by my son Marino
, who is just beginning to 'institutionalize' himself in the garden, and which can also be seen at the New York expo,” he indicates. .
Amalia Pica.
Art on conference table modules.
Photo: Courtesy of Ultraviolet gallery.
“The link between the works in ARCO is a series of small
bronze sculptures
, which are based on objects that I had on my
work table
during the isolation in the
pandemic
and that allude to my work, of course, but also to
motherhood
and
sports
. , and that instead of pedestals they rest on piles of papers.
For this reason, it is titled
Pisapapeles
”, He adds.
The office and the bureaucracy relate themselves.
“The incredible thing was how they came together during the pandemic,” as Pica says.
But there is more.
In 2020 she won the
Zurich Art Prize
and presented the exhibition
Round table (and other forms)
at the Haus Konstruktiv Museum in that city.
He used
tables
that are assembled with modules and intervened with
designs that allude to concrete art
and
kaleidoscopes
.
ARCO also shows sketches of a
Study to rearrange the conference table
.
“I aimed to point out that
visual enjoyment
is important, not solemn meetings.
This must be emphasized to open contemporary art to a wider audience.
Furthermore, being an artist means doing formal experiments and the material you use conditions you and encourages you.”
Just like with school.
And, as with kaleidoscopes, Pica's work also amazes you.
ARCO Madrid ends on March 10. The Expanded Classroom exhibition can be visited at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, 521 West 21st Street, New York, until April 4.
J.S.