Pica, Amalia
Amalia Pica – whose diverse practice includes sculpture, performance, drawing and installation – is concerned with the ways in which art can function as a form of communication. Interested in whether ‘images can act as language’, she also pays attention to the potential for misunderstanding or misinterpretation. The sculptures in her ongoing series Catachresis are constructed from parts of found objects that have no name of their own, and have instead taken on names for parts of the body. In Catachresis #40 (2013) and Catachresis #77 (2016) these include the head of a screw, the arm of a chair and the teeth of a saw. The resulting sculptural amalgamations are deliberately absurd. ‘I think of absurdity as a call for complicity’, she explains. ‘If I tell a joke, you either laugh or you don’t. If you laugh, it feels like there’s a moment of complete understanding between us. Often this moment of empathy is clearer through absurdity than through rational discourse.’
- Artwork Details: 147.5 x 60 x 60cm
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- Material description: Found materials
- Credit line: © the artist
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- Accession number: ACC45/2016