Amalia Pica
at Marc Foxx

Amalia Pica: Blow the Whistle, Beat the Drum (installation view) (2016). Image courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx.

The title of Amalia Pica’s latest exhibition at Marc Foxx, Blow the Whistle, Beat the Drum, puts front and center the entwined concepts of sound and protest that unite the objects on view. As in past works, Pica presents spare installations of recognizable forms that she renders strange through scale, color, and placement, and which she links metaphorically to the body and its political potential.

Opposite a row of pickets displaying party streamers, the most striking work is (un)heard (2016), which covers a gallery wall in an orderly arrangement of noisemakers one might use in demonstrations. Once able to raise a ruckus, these whistles, pans, and jerry cans are covered in white plaster, their visual-aural impact muted and aestheticized. Pica performs a related operation with a series of floor sculptures in the shape of giant hearing aids. Rendering these light, inconspicuous objects in marble and granite, she neutralizes their intended function. By frustrating these sonic tools, the artist raises a timely question: at a moment when social media and never-ending news cycles privilege the loudest voices, does silence constitute the most powerful form of protest?

Pica’s political message remains ambivalent; without context, these works could be understood merely as appealing objects. Nevertheless, the absurdity of Pica’s translations of form and function encourage viewers to seek that context and maintain  skepticism as to what they are witnessing. Nearby, the drawings comprising Joy in Paperwork (2016) take international bureaucratic stamps (“Cancelado,” “Paid,” etc.) and turn them into playful patterns and compositions. More than pretty pictures, Pica’s designs elicit somber reflections upon the global immigration and refugee crises, and the life-or-death exclusions such marks can entail. Their repeating, often disintegrating, text emphasizes the need to read between the lines and attend to the invisible bodies and muted voices they implicate.    

Amalia Pica: Blow the Whistle, Beat the Drum runs October 22–November 26, 2016 at Marc Foxx (6150 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048)

Amalia Pica, (un)heard (2016). Plastered noisemaking objects of protest, metal hardware, rope, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx.

Amalia Pica, Procession (Reconfiguration) (2016). Acid free paper, acrylic, wood, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx.

Amalia Pica, In Praise of Listening (2016). Black granite, marble, silicone tubing, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx.

Amalia Pica, In Praise of Listening (2016). Marble, paint, silicone tubing, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx.

Amalia Pica, In Praise of Listening (2016). Soapstone and marble, silicone tubing, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx.

Amalia Pica, Joy in Paperwork (Suite of 42) (2016). Stamp ink on A4 paper, each 12.625 x 9.5 inches, framed. Image courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx.

Amalia Pica, (un)heard (2016). Plastered noisemaking objects of protest, metal hardware, rope, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx.

Amalia Pica, In Praise of Listening (2016). Marble, paint, silicone tubing, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Marc Foxx.

Claire de Dobay Rifelj is a curator, writer, and art historian based in Los Angeles. She has produced exhibitions for CalArts, the Hammer Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Williams College Museum of Art, and her writing has appeared in exhibition catalogues, the LA Weekly, and on ForYourArt.com.

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