Nicolas Party
Rovine
27.06.2021–09.01.2022

From 27 June 2021 to 9 January 2022, the Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana presents “Rovine” (Ruins), the first major monographic exhibition of Nicolas Party (Lausanne, 1980) ever to be displayed in a museum in Europe. This immersive project allows the artist to give life to a rather uncanny universe, complete with bold contrasts of colour, enveloping architectural forms, and startling trompe l’oeil decorations. Against this backdrop, his magnetic artworks are staged: large site-specific murals, intriguing polychrome sculptures and luminous pastel paintings.
This ambitious exhibition is in fact a project conceived by the artist, on the basis of the specific structure of MASI largest exhibition hall. Here, on an imposing scale, his soaring, centrally planned architecture, is divided into five distinct environments, each dedicated to a recurring motif in Nicolas Party’s work: still life, portrait, rocky views, caves, and landscape.
On the outside of this structure, Party has created four large pastel murals, inspired by four works produced by Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901), a leading representative of symbolism, all depicting enigmatic views of the decaying buildings evoked in the title of the exhibition. These monochromatic, decadent scenarios usher visitors into an environment that contrasts sharply with the chromatic explosion of the works and environments that feature inside the architectural space itself. As is the norm for the artist, Party has further transformed the exhibition space with backgrounds painted in contrasting colours and polychrome marble trompe l’oeil decorations, created in collaboration with Sarah Margnetti. Indeed, this manner of displaying his work is at the core of Party’s belief: exhibitions always represent an opportunity to stage his paintings and sculptures in an environment capable of sparking further possible interpretations of his art, by placing his pieces not simply in relation to one another, but also within their setting.
The Artist
Born in Lausanne in 1980, Nicolas Party currently lives and works in New York. His unique artistic path began in his early teens, when he first became obsessed with graffiti, a means of expression he has continued to explore for the following decade. After turning his interest towards 3D animation, he subsequently completed his training by obtaining a Master’s in Fine Arts from the Glasgow School of Art. Over the past ten years, Party’s artworks have been greeted with both critical and public acclaim and have been displayed in renowned institutions, including Musée Magritte (Brussels, 2018), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington DC, 2017), Dallas Museum of Art (2016), Centre Culturel Suisse (Paris, 2015) and Swiss Institute (New York, 2012).
- LAC venue
Piazza Bernardino Luini 6, 6900 Lugano
- Nicolas Party, Still Life, 2014, soft pastel on canvas, Collection Migros Museum für Gegenwartkunst, Photo: Christophe Coënon © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Landscape, 2014, soft pastel on canvas, Private collection, Bern, Photo: Christophe Coënon © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Portrait, 2015, soft pastel on canvas, Gherardo Felloni, Photo: Andrea Rossetti © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Portrait, 2017, soft pastel on canvas, Courtesy of the artist, Photo: Isabelle Arthuis © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Still Life, 2017, soft pastel on canvas, Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano. Deposito dell'Associazione ProMuseo, Photo: Isabelle Arthuis © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Head, 2018, Acrylic and Oil on fiberglass and polystyrene, Collection of Iris e Adam Singer – Promised gift to the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Photo: HV-studio, Bruxelles © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Sunrise, 2018, soft pastel on canvas, Courtesy the artist and Xavier Hufkens, Bruxelles, Photo: Isabelle Arthius © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Still Life, 2020, soft pastel on canvas, Courtesy the artist and The Modern Institute/ Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow, Photo: Adam Reich © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Portrait, 2020, soft pastel on canvas, Private collection, Photo: Adam Reich © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Cave, 2020, soft pastel on canvas, Collection Carolyn and William Wolfe, Photo: Adam Reich © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Landscape, 2020, soft pastel on canvas, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Photo: Adam Reich © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party, Creases, 2021,Soft pastel on pastel card and faux marble mat border, Fillistorf Collection, Zürich, Photo: Adam Reich © Nicolas Party
- Nicolas Party in his studio, Photo by Axel Dupeux, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth © Nicolas Party