b. 1983, Anchorage, Alaska, U.S.; lives and works in Los Angeles, U.S.

Nikita Gale uses concrete and metal, light and sound to compose atmospheric, large-scale installations, whose themes include invisibility and audibility, the social and political landscapes of our moment and the tools that shape our behaviours there. Gale interrogates the unstable relationship between performer and spectator, who frequently reside in structures that are in ruin. Often presented as barricades and obstacles, they can be accompanied by audio-visual works and videos that combined, politicize the space of appearance. By speculating on what might happen if social infrastructures of visibility disintegrate, Gale seems to ask how their remains could be used in ways that supercede normative more sensory economies. Gale considers how authority would be negotiated within alternate political, social, and economic systems. Gale’s work points to the ways that technology not only functions as a tool that serves us but also as a new condition that shapes our sociality in dominant and violent ways, too. Gale’s work considers the role of the audience as a social arena and by extension, considers the ways that silence, noise, visibility and opacity function as political positions and new tools therein.

Nikita Gale's recent projects BLUR BALLAD, Emalin, London (2023); Impossible Music, ICA Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh (2023); HOLLOWSCENE, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2022); IN A DREAM YOU CLIMB THE STAIRS, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2022); TAKERS, LAXART, Los Angeles (2022); END OF SUBJECT, 52 Walker, New York (2022); Counter Cartographies, Anchorage Museum (2021); SOME WEATHER, CIRCA in collaboration with Chisenhale Gallery, London (2021); PRIVATE DANCER, California African-American Museum, Los Angeles (2021); AUDIENCING, MoMA PS1, New York (2020); EASY LISTENING, The Visual Arts Center, University of Texas at Austin (2019); and DESCENT, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2018).

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