Nic Nicosia Installs the Hoffman Tower Room Project
Contemporary artist Nic Nicosia installed a room dedicated to his work in a patron’s gallery in Dallas called the Hoffman Tower Project Room, in February 2015. He describes creating the installation specifically for the room.
With the installation in Marguerite Hoffman’s, Tower Room, I have presented photographs, drawings,
sculpture, and a site-specific wall drawing. The photographs represent three separate bodies of work. in the absence of others, 2010-2011, stories, 2013, and the grid piece, about may-august 2014. Each work characterized a thought, event or moment in my life and the paper clay and cast figures represented an emotional state. The figures, the basket containing wadded pieces of paper, 2190 #2, and the framed drawing, 2190 #3, originally existed as props for the photo works, yet now stand alone as sculptural objects.The wall drawing, 2190 #5, was conceived and realized specifically for this space. The number, 2190, represents a very personal, meaningful, amount of time and seeing that number physically realized is the reason for the making of this drawing.
Works from the series, Stories, 2013, are shown on the wall to the right of the doorway. The 9-panel grid piece of photographs is titled, About May – October 2014.
The wall drawing is titled 2190, which is the number of circles Nicosia drew in graphite on the wall over three days. He says, “that’s a lot of rings when you actually make something that many times.” He could draw 10, 15 or 20 circles at one time. “Then I had to put it down and take a breath and do it again.”
The main house is in the background. In the foreground, the entrance to the Hoffman Tower Room Project room, are a basket and drawing by Nicosia. Marguerite Hoffman’s collection in this building also include a Jasper Johns, a Rachel Whiteread, a Cy Twombly, a Franz Kline and a Joseph Cornell.
A sculptural figure stands on a skylight over the building’s lower floor.
A shelf of sculptures is adjacent to the 2190 wall drawing.
Installation view, Hoffman Tower Project Room, 2015
Wall drawing detail, 2190, Hoffman Tower Project Room, 2015