Nicola Ginzel
area: Mixed Media, Installation
Key Facts
nationality
USAarea
Mixed Media, Installationresidence
Brooklyn, NYrecommending institution
Fulbright Austriatime period
March 2020 - March 2020Mixed media, installation artist, Nicola Ginzel, lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and works at the Old American Can Factory in the Gowanus. She is the recipient of a 2019-20 Fulbright US Scholar grant.
Residencies include SIM—The Icelandic Visual Arts Association and Reykjavik Art Museum Residency; The Skaftfell Cultural Center Residency in Seydisfjördur, Iceland; and BoxoPROJECTS in Joshua Tree, CA.
Selected reviews include Artcritical by Stephanie Buhmann, Art in America by Janet Kopolos, The Philadelphia Inquirer by Edith Newhall, Blouin Modern Painters, Time Out New York, New Art TV, The Chicago Tribune, and most recently by John Yau in Hyperallergic.
She had her first ten–year retrospective and traveling museum exhibition,“ Language, Symbol, Artifact,” at the Tennessee Valley Museum of Art. Other selected exhibitions have been at Cathouse FUNeral in Brooklyn; Jenny Jaskey Gallery in Philadelphia; Corridor Gallery in Reykjavik, Iceland; Heskin Contemporary in NYC; and The Gallery@1GAP curated by Spence Projects in Brooklyn; SEASON, curated by Robert Yoder in Seattle, WA. In collaboration with Carter Ratcliff, FreedmanArt features her work in ‘Hiding in Plain Sight Objects Common and Curious’ in NYC.
The name of my project is called: Psyche and Commerce: The Realignment of the Nail–Tree Talisman. I will be working together with my host institution, Lumine (formerly, Lichttapete) during my residency period in order to prepare and plan the presentation material needed for the finished piece, a transformed façade of the Palaís Equitable through the projection of light. This projection originates from the corner of the building where the ’Stock Im Eisen’ (aka. Staff of Iron) is preserved under glass. This ’Staff’ is the midsection of a tree trunk from the middle ages with thousands of nails hammered into it. It is recognized as one of Vienna’s historical landmarks. By transforming this trunk, this “mythical taproot,“ back into a vibrant tree and possibly even placing it among an entire spruce forest of light, my hope is to shfit the energy of the building from one of greed to one of equality.