Over the last three decades, Amalia Pica has examined relationships and how we communicate. Often using seemingly simple materials and found objects, she investigates human modes of interaction, especially our desire to learn and to be understood as we try to make sense of the world around us, and the accompanying pleasures and failures. Her work has an intentional lightness of touch and playfulness, which Pica prioritizes for its power to draw viewers into a conversation. Pica began her career as a primary school art teacher, an experience that continually informs much of her work. Aula Expandida features an interactive installation, sculptures, embroideries, and collages that explore how art, imagination, and language are connected, especially during the formative years of early childhood. In the gallery downstairs, visitors encounter a large room filled with everyday objects that have been turned into chalkboards, and they are invited to pick up a piece of chalk to draw, write, or scribble on all surfaces around them. In Aula Grande (outlined) – Spanish for large classroom – Pica examines the role school plays in imparting a common visual language in our cultural imaginary, and how this way of seeing and thinking accompanies us through the rest of our lives. The installation proposes that we rewrite, redraw, and reimagine alternative narrative possibilities from an expansion of knowledge centered on daily life. By involving visitors in her work, Pica invites both intellectual and physical modes of participation as we are asked to reconsider our surrounding environment as a classroom.
New York City, NY; NYC