Issue 47

Nicole Eisenman:
Myths and Misconceptions

Artist Nicole Eisenman makes contemporary history paintings for now.

feature by ALISON KUBLER MAY 2019

2019 is fast shaping up to be Nicole Eisenman’s year. The artist is making significant new work for inclusion in two of the art world’s most eagerly anticipated exhibitions: the 58th Venice Biennale, entitled May You Live In Interesting Times, curated by Ralph Rugoff (director of the Hayward Gallery in London), and the 2019 Whitney Biennial, now in its 79th iteration, curated by Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley. Where the Venice Biennale casts its eye across the diaspora in an attempt to present a global perspective on the times in which we live, the Whitney Biennial takes the temperature of America quite specifically. At the time of writing, Eisenman’s contribution to Venice is unclear; for the Whitney she is working on a large-scale multifigure sculptural installation – a tableau of monumental figures – for the museum’s sixth-floor terrace. It’s fair to say Eisenman’s dance card is full.

Significantly, this will be the artist’s second inclusion in the Whitney Biennial; her first inclusion was in 1995 and that exhibition proved something of a catalyst for her significant career to follow. Eisenman has been at the forefront of contemporary art practice in America since the 1990s, and her inclusion in two such seminal concurrent surveys some 30 years later is evidence of her work’s enduring quality. In 2016 she was subject of a major survey at the New Museum, New York, entitled Al-ugh-ories; in 2015 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship;... Subscribe to read this article in full

IMALENNOX STACMIACCA MelbourneMCA Roslyn Oxley Gallery
Issue 47