The American artist Nicole Eisenman works across oil painting, drawing, mural art and more recently, sculpture art. Her practice encompasses a diverse and shifting set of preoccupations: beginning with depictions of the New York art scene she found herself in during the 1990s, and extending to recent works that react to the pressing sociopolitical issues of our current historical moment. For the first time, the breadth of her practice is on display at Nicole Eisenman: What Happened, co-organised by Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Whitechapel Gallery, London and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago in the United States. The MCA presentation is the final leg of its journey, running from April 6 - September 22, 2024. STIR was joined by Jadine Collingwood, who is both Associate Curator at the MCA and the curator of the show, for an interview that shed light on Eisenman’s process.

The compositions of many of Eisenman’s works seem to extend beyond the canvas. They feel like a snapshot of a larger scene and are imbued with a peculiar emotional quality that is difficult to pin down. When asked what audiences are to make of this, the art curator tells STIR, “Through figurative painting, Eisenman is exploring the complexity of human experiences. The contemporary life and emotions that she captures, such as rebellion, wit, humour and sorrowfulness become relatable to visitors.” She hopes that visitors to the MCA will experience the gamut of feelings that Eisenman portrays and that the many techniques she incorporates into her practice will magnify particular emotions.

The sheer range of emotions portrayed within Nicole Eisenman’s art can be evidenced through a reading of Sloppy Bar Room Kiss (2011) and Beer Garden with Ulrike and Celeste (2009). The former carries a sense of drunken desperation that feels all-too-human. Meanwhile, the latter feels listless and numb. Both of these paintings respond to how the US citizenry coped with the 2008 financial crisis, the climate crisis and the rise of far-right populist politics in their nation. Collingwood discusses these works, saying, “Both of those paintings are in a section of the art exhibition called Coping. The social art pieces are from the early 2000s and represent a shift in Nicole’s painting. Before these, her works were self-portraits and depictions of communities in the New York scene.” Collingwood explains that it was in the early 2000s that Eisenman began to explore larger social and political issues through her practice, and points out that the painter eschews direct depictions of the critical issues of our times, instead choosing to present ordinary people continuing to live despite the wars, political inflammations and social upheavals unfolding around them in her political art. As she puts it, “The works show a tension between a kind of listlessness and sorrowfulness, but also people in community with one another.”

The works show a tension between a kind of listlessness and sorrowfulness, but also people in the community with one another. – Jadine Collingwood, Associate Curator, MCA Chicago.

Eisenman’s influences are manifold and encompass a varied range across history. She has found inspiration in Renaissance paintings, the underground comic art of the sort created by American comic artist Robert Crumb and the works of American painter Marsden Hartley to name a few sources. Her human figures bear a strong resemblance to Hartley’s, in particular, and his influence on Eisenman stretches beyond the canvas. One of her recent sculptures from 2022, Edie (The Destroyer), titled after a rambunctious cat adopted by the painter during the COVID-19 pandemic, contains a reference to him: the sculpture is a crane with a wrecking ball fashioned in the likeness of a cat’s head. The crane is from a brand called Marsden Crane Services, which Collingwood explains was a deliberate nod to the painter.

Each presentation of What Happened has included one unique sculpture, giving each show of the travelling exhibition its own character. The unsettling Procession (2019) was shown at Brandhorst and Maker’s Muck (2022) went on display at Whitechapel. The former is composed of large, distorted human bodies resembling penitent pilgrims, and the latter features a potter sitting at their wheel with strange and disjointed creations surrounding them. The aforementioned works and Edie (The Destroyer) shown at the MCA, hint at the strange and challenging art audiences can expect from Eisenman in the future. While her sculptural practice is relatively younger than her painting work, only having intensified after 2012, the artist has managed to infuse her sculpted pieces with the same idiosyncratic energy that her works on canvas exude and has perhaps even magnified it in this larger-than-life format.

‘Nicole Eisenman: What Happened’ is on view at the MCA from April 6 - September 22, 2024.