Studio Lecture Series: Nikita Gale

Made possible by the Millicent Greenwell Clapp Studio Art Series Fund, this series invites an artist each quarter for a two-day visit consisting of studio critiques with our MFA students and an evening public lecture. This series continues to provide a dynamic platform for artists to engage with the Stanford community, fostering critical dialogue and creative exploration.

Abstract: A reflection on the form of the artist lecture and the relationship between power, performance, and attention.

Nikita Gale is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, California. The artist holds a BA in Anthropology with an emphasis in Archaeological Studies from Yale University and an MFA in New Genres from 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 in the 2024 Whitney Biennial (New York); 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 “Made in L.A. 2018” at the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles). Gale is represented by Petzel (New York), 56 Henry (New York), Commonwealth & Council (Los Angeles), and Emalin (London).

Photo by Walter Wlodarczy of OTHER SEASONS (performance still) for Performa Biennial, 2023.

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VISITOR INFORMATION

This event is open to Stanford affiliates and the general public. Space for this program is limited; advance registration is recommended. Those who have registered will have priority for seating. Admission is free.

Oshman Hall is located within the McMurtry Building on Stanford campus at 355 Roth Way. Visitor parking is available in designated areas and is free after 4pm on weekdays. Alternatively, take the Caltrain to Palo Alto Transit Center and hop on the free Stanford Marguerite Shuttle. If you need a disability-related accommodation or wheelchair access information, please contact Julianne Garcia at [email protected].

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