Nikita Gale (b. 1983 Anchorage, Alaska) is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, California and holds a BA in Anthropology with an emphasis in Archaeological Studies from Yale University and earned an MFA in New Genres at UCLA.
Gale’s work explores the relationship between materials, power, and attention. A key tenet of the artist’s practice is that the structures that shape attention determine who or what is seen, heard, recorded, remembered, and believed.
Gale’s practice examines the ways in which silence, noise, and visibility function as political positions and conditions. Gale’s broad-ranging installations – often comprising concrete, barricades, video and automated sound and lighting – blur formal and disciplinary boundaries, engaging with concerns of mediation and automation in contemporary performance. By approaching reproduction as a mechanism that connects humans to a desire for extension and amplification through both biological and industrial processes, the artist’s work points to the ways that technology not only functions as an extension and amplification of the body but also as a means by which labor and violence are displaced and concentrated.
The artist’s work has recently been exhibited at Tate Modern (London), Chisenhale (London); LAXART (Los Angeles); 52 Walker (New York); MoMA PS1 (New York); Kunstraum Kreuzberg (Berlin); Swiss Institute (New York); California African American Museum (Los Angeles); The Studio Museum in Harlem (New York); and in “Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing” at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and “Made in L.A. 2018” at the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles).
Gale’s work has appeared in numerous publications including Texte zur Kunst, Mousse, Art in America, Art21, AQNB, Frieze, Vogue, and Flash Art. Nikita is a Contributing Editor at Triple Canopy.
The artist’s work is included in the collections at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California; Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; Pérez Art Museum, Museum Miami (PAMM), Miami, Florida; The Studio Museum, Harlem, New York; and Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom.
"Having an audience to witness, distribute and share experiences is crucial to the recognition of something existing or having happened. It’s the way that the audience or the witness produces a thing, and then reproduces it and how that site of encounter between objects and audience is the moment at which a new relationship is produced."
Nikita Gale
1983 Born in Anchorage, Alaska
2006 BA in Anthropology (Archaeological Studies), Yale University, New Haven, CT
2016 MFA in New Genres, University of California, Los Angeles
2017 First solo exhibition, RIFF FATIGUE, at Artist CuratedProjects, Los Angeles, CA
Included in group show Fictions, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
2018 Keynote Drift, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA
Included in group show Made in L.A., Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Co-organizes Omniaudience project for Triple Canopy’s twenty-sixth issue
2019 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME
EASY LISTENING, University of Texas, Austin Visual Arts Center, Austin, TX
2020 AUDIENCING, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY
PRIVATE DANCER, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Produces US VS US, an interactive slideshow with 200 flowers, representing the killings of innocent people, and LAPD gear amidst Black Lives Matter Protests
2021 CIVIL STAGE, Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK
SOME WEATHER, CIRCA and Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK; Tokyo, JP; Seoul, KR
2022 Awarded Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant
END OF SUBJECT, 52 Walker, New York, NY
TAKERS, LAXART, Los Angeles, CA
IN A DREAM YOU CLIMB THE STAIRS, Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK
63/22, BMW x Frieze Open Work, London, UK
First group show with Petzel, in collaboration with Commonwealth & Council
2023 Begins showing with Petzel
Participated in Taipei Biennial 2023
BLURRED BALLAD, Emalin, London, UK
OTHER SEASONS, Performa Biennial 2023, Plaxall, Queens, NY
2024 Forthcoming solo show, Petzel Gallery, New York, NY