‘Stylistic Chameleon’ Nicole Eisenman Survey At MCA Chicago
Nicole Eisenman (American, born 1965); 'Beer Garden with AK'; 2009; oil on canvas; total: 65 x ... 82 inches (165.1 x 208.3 cm); Private collection, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is hosting the first major exhibition on Nicole Eisenman, a French artist who took cues from Michelangelo, Baroque painting, German Expressionism, Pop Art, comics, and soft porn. The exhibition, "Nicole Eisenman: What Happened," runs until September 22, 2024. Approximately 100 works from 1992 to the present, showcase Eisenman's range of formats and techniques. The Museum's Exhibition Curator, Jadine Collingwood, hopes visitors feel welcome and free to enter the humorous side of the play, even when it draws on serious historical references. Early works from the early 1990s include drawings and self-portraits, reflecting Eisenman’s community in downtown New York. He also expanded his artistic creation to address contemporary political issues during the War on Terror, the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and a growing awareness of climate change.
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She can be lewd, crude and rude. Hilariously funny, inappropriate, or deeply insightful, all at the same time, depending on where you stand.
Taking cues from Michelangelo, Baroque painting, German Expressionism, Pop Art, comics, and soft porn, to name a few, Nicole Eisenman (b. 1965, Verdun, France; lives in Brooklyn, NY) it is difficult to categorize.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago serves as the sole U.S. outlet for “Nicole Eisenman: What Happened,” (through September 22, 2024), the first major exhibition on the “stylistic chameleon,” in the words of MCA Chicago exhibition curator Jadine Collingwood. Through approximately 100 works from 1992 to the present, the presentation showcases Eisenman's range of formats and techniques.
“She moves very easily between all these different references – Renaissance painting to abstraction to popular culture – but at the end of the day, I think what's really interesting about her practice is that she's always looking in contemporary life, she is an observer. of everyday life,” Collingwood told Forbes.com. “(These works of art) are explorations of the human condition.”
“I hope visitors feel welcome and free to enter the humorous side of the play, even when it draws on serious historical references,” Collingwood said. “There's always a joke, a wink or a goof, it's always poking fun at different customs or social conventions, so I hope people feel they have room to laugh when they watch the show.”
With so many artworks on view and Eisenman giving so much for viewers to think about, focusing on key works can help guests find their way.
Eisenman's early 1990s drawings reflect his immediate community living in downtown New York. He was part of a close-knit scene of other artists, musicians and writers. She had a full-time job as an illustrator for the “Village Voice” during part of this period, showing work at small independent galleries in the area.
“At the time I wasn't thinking about how these (drawings) would read to a bigger, wider audience,” Collingwood explained. “He was talking to his friends and colleagues and classmates, making fun of the stereotypes that were being paid for.”
“It's a recruiting booth with a line of housewives dotted around and then above them the booth says, 'Try it, you might like it,'” Collingwood continues. “Taking what would be a stereotype and turning it on its head and often using humor as a weapon.”
Pirates captured on the island of Lesvos (1992), whores (1993), Betty makes it (1993), Dyke, Hyde, Tyke (1994) and Alice in Wonderland (1996) are among dozens of early career works on paper featured in “What Happened,” all of which Lesbian hiring booth throwing artistic hand grenades at perceptions of queer culture and discretion. This part of the exhibit is definitely not safe for work.
These drawings and a series of self-portraits make up roughly half of the show, spanning the first decade of Eisenman's career through the early 2000s, when he began to expand his artistic creation to think about more contemporary political issues. big.
Against the backdrop of the War on Terror, the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and a growing awareness of climate change, Eisenman shifted from his personal and self-scrutinizing works to socio-political allegories akin to the Flemish painter Peter Bruegel the Old in the 16th century.th century
“There's a continuous thread where, rather than portraying these things directly, he turns his eyes back to the day-to-day and looks at how people carry on and carry on despite all of that,” Collingwood said. “One of the key works is this painting called confrontationwhich is a crowd of people who sink in mud up to their waists and keep moving forward.”
“All these individuals walking through the mud (and) in the center of this painting, it's very small, but there's a woman with a child and a man next to her pointing the way forward,” Collingwood continues. “This is actually a self-portrait of Nicole, she did the painting shortly after having her first child, and showing herself next to this man who points the way forward, who is her father, is a way of remind herself that she knows a way to go despite this.”
Although the twenties spent time focusing on printmaking and sculpture, large-scale social commentary paintings such as coping– 5 by 7 feet – remain an important aspect of his practice.
gathering (2018), a group of figures apparently including Donald Trump sitting on piles of mud on top of the world; FTP (2020), an upside-down portrait of a police officer.
“There is a painting called Abolitionists in the park (2020-2021), which is a depiction of a Black Lives Matter protest; is based on an actual sit-in in New York that Nicole attended with a number of friends and other artists,” Collingwood explained. “Her children are also included, so it becomes a personal portrait of the its own political activity while also addressing larger social issues.”
In 2012, a residency in London allowed Eisenman to make a right turn from drawing and painting to sculpture. Although he had always sculpted, the human-scale plaster works he began to create were a revelation. They turned heads at the 2013 Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. They were the undisputed star of the 2019 Whitney Biennial show in New York. They have become fan favorites in Boston and Dallas.
Eisenman, today, may be best known as a sculptor.
Combining his sculpture and love of cats, he shows “What Happened”. Eddie the Destroyer (2022), a tribute to a pet acquired during the pandemic, a cat named Edie who promptly proceeded to destroy all of her things.
“A monumental sculpture that is a crane, except for the wrecking ball, is a bronze cat head based on his tiny cat Edie,” Collingwood perfectly describes the piece. “What is more everyday and more permeable to our lives than cats? It's another way to represent your immediate surroundings, but also to add a little wink and humor to the pieces.”
Cats populate Eisenman's artwork, even the most serious pieces, their calming presence welcome in the crazy world it reflects.