Amalia Pica

Neuquén Capital,Argentina,1978

Amalia Pica (1978) was born in Neuquén, Argentina. She moved to Buenos Aires to study at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes P. Pueyrredón, completing her degree in 2001.

Central to Pica’s work is the problem of communication, which he explores by placing everyday objects alongside obsolete technologies such as shutter telegraphs, slide projectors, and 16mm film. However, although her interest is in language and the mechanisms by which communication is attempted, most of her projects are silent. She compensates for this apparent lack by adding texts that clarify the missing parts. The Venn Diagram (under the spotlight) (2011), for example, consists of two overlapping circles of colored light projected from theatrical spotlights. In the accompanying captions, the artist explains how the dictators of the 1970s banned Venn diagrams and the set theory they illustrate in Argentine schools, being considered potentially subversive at a time when citizens were being prosecuted for gathering in public.

However, while his work may seem reticent at first, depending as it does on the impossibility of a perfect relationship, it is never without humor. Aware that his ideas can never survive the process of realization fully intact, Pica revels in their inevitable mutation and creates new systems of discourse that brim with fractured syntax, encrypted semantics, and joyful semiotics.

Pica has had solo exhibitions at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (2024); Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico (2023); Brighton CCA, United Kingdom, (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 (2017); Kunstverein Freiburg (2016); NuMu, Guatemala City (2015); Van Abbemuseum, The Netherlands (2014); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2013); Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2013); Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Neuquén, Argentina (2013); Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2012); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2012); Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland (2012); University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor (2011); and Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2010).

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