The Making of the Moment: The Work of Argentinean Artist Amalia Pica
Everybody knows what a room looks like after a great party. Cigarette
smoke still hangs in the air, and the chaos and mess are all that remain of the raucous celebration
the night before. In her work Final de Fiesta (End of the Party) Argentinean artist
Amalia Pica recalls the unusually lonely feeling that sets in once the guests have
gone home. Colorful paper garlands hang from the ceiling and walls of an empty space as if they had
been ripped by revelers during a wild dance number. Bright but bedraggled, they evoke a sense of nostalgia
for the vitality of the celebration that is somehow so palpable in the quietness of the day after.
Final
de Fiesta, installation © Amalia Pica
This combination of longing
and joy characterize much of Pica’s work, and she has a talent for bridging geographical and cultural
distance with a light, wistful sense of humor. For example, a series of photographs Christmas
Plants shows palm trees and cacti decked out in full Christmas regalia. These images of Christmas
in southern climes seem odd and humorous to Northern sensibilities and point to the spread of the European
version of Christmas throughout the globe.
Christmas
Plants, photograph © Amalia Pica
Christmas
Plants © Amalia Pica
In another series of photographs, shown as
a sequence of slides, a boy traces the outline of a palm tree in the snow with the help of a bucket.
At the end he leaves the bucket behind, which is placed to look like a fallen coconut. Both series of
images seem to tell the story yearning for a distant, warmer place — either through fanciful reality
or childlike imagination.
Si no estàs tù, slide series © Amalia Pica
Pica’s work in public space has a similar light touch but also carries a subversive punch. For a large group exhibition in Amsterdam, where bicycles are often the preferred mode of transportation, the artist’s installation greeted exhibition goers just outside the door. Different colored bike lights attached to a mass of bicycles parked together formed a temporary installation. Visitors were welcomed on the cold winter night with blinking lights that seemed to suggest both the gathering of a gregarious crowd and an undercurrent of warning.
Bikes, installation © Amalia Pica
Finally, for her public poster project Grayscale Pica worked with the ultimate symbol of impermanence and promise: the rainbow. Using photographs of rainbows taken by different people throughout the world, the artist pieced together complete rainbows and printed the images as posters, but only in black and white. Although strikingly beautiful without color, the monochrome tone of the images inverts the idea of the rainbow as a symbol for individuality and personal choice. Different geographical locations become one in a unifying gray that seems to suggest the blandness of a world without difference.
Grayscale, poster project © Amalia Pica
Pica is a master at evoking a thoughtful mood while playfully challenging us in our perceptions of the world around us. The fleeting nature of her installations and imagery, whether they suggest a party, a place, or natural phenomena, seem to tell us to savor the moment that she makes linger.
Amalia Pica lives in Amsterdam, unfortunately she has no website.
