05 Nov 2013

Amalia Pica at Kunsthalle Lissabon

Kunsthalle Lissabon presents Memorial for intersections, the first exhibition in Portugal of Argentinian artist Amalia Pica. Exploring different media like sculpture, photography, drawing, text, interventions in public space or performance, Pica's practice has used motifs like megaphones, microphones, antennas, flags, among others, which can be directly linked to actions such as speaking, writing, receiving, or presenting, thus developing a reflection on the way we communicate and exchange information with others.

In A ∩ B ∩ C, a project Pica presented earlier this year at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, and more recently at Herald St., the artist's gallery in London, a group of performers pick up geometric perspex shapes that line the wall of the exhibition space, and arrange them into a composition in front of the audience. The compositions thus created are not determined in advance by Pica, who only established as a rule that no more than one shape can stand alone at any one time. This rule is derived from the field of mathematics known as set theory, which gives the work its name: a reference to the places where A and B and B and C intersect or, in this case, where the different perspex shapes intersect as a result of the action of the performers. A ∩ B ∩ C also functioned as a performative manifestation of sorts of the Venn diagrams that Pica used in Venn Diagrams (Under the Spotlight), a work presented in 2011 at the Venice Biennale and investigating a specific episode in the history of the use of such diagrams: the prohibition of its use during the Argentinian dictatorship of 1976-1983. Pica speculates that the ban was due to the fact that they enabled the representation of the concept of cooperation.

During the presentation of A ∩ B ∩ C at the Tamayo Museum, the performances were documented photographically on black and white film, an inappropriate medium to record the colors of both the perspex shapes and their intersections. This documentation is at the origin of the set of sculptures now being presented for the first time in Kunsthalle Lissabon. Being an exercise of subjectivity, since Pica had to imagine the colors of the shapes, hopelessly lost in the documentation process, Memorial for intersections suggests stories of avant-garde and abstraction, of rise and fall of utopias. These are memorials for ephemeral moments, for episodes and images that lasted only seconds but in which forms did represent and effectively create cooperation between individuals.


Amalia Pica was born in Neuquén, Argentina in 1978. She lives and works in London. A selection of her recent solo shows includes: Herald St, London (2013); Galerie Johann Konig, Berlin (2013); List Visual Arts Center, MIT and Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago (2013); Kunsthalle St Gallen (2012); Modern Art Oxford (2012); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2012); University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor (2011); Microphones, SKOR, Inkijk, Amsterdam (2011); Malmo Konsthall, (2010); Galerie Diana Stigter, Amesterdam (2010); ALONGSIDE (two person with Leonor Antunes) MARC FOXX, Los Angeles (2009); Robinson Crusoe, Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz (2008). A selection of groups shows featuring her work includes: When Attitudes Became Form Became Attitudes, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit e CCA Wattis, San Francisco (2013); Artificial Amsterdam, de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam (2013); Ruins in Reverse, Tate Modern Project Space, London and Museo de Arte de Lima (2013); Au Loin, une ile!, Foundation Ricard, Paris e FRAC Bordeaux (2012); ILLUMInations, 54thVenice Biennale (2011); Unresolved circumstances: video art from Latin America, The Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach (2011); Weltraum/Space, About a Dream, Kunsthalle Wien (2011); Testing Ground, Zabludowicz Collection London (2011); With Words Like Smoke, Chelsea Space, London (2010); Buen viaje, Hayward Gallery, London (2010); Every version belongs to the myth, Project Arts Center, Dublin (2009); Pete and repeat, Zabludowicz Collection project space, London (2009); Word Event, Kunsthalle Basel (2008); Drawing typologies, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2007). Pica was recently nominated for the Future Generation Art Prize 2012.

Kunsthalle Lissabon is supported by Secretaria de Estado da Cultura/Direção Geral das Artes (DGArtes), Teixeira de Freitas, Rodrigues e Associados. and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.