Royal Academy Courtyard, London
22 September - 05 February 2027
This September, a major new work by acclaimed New York-based artist Nicole Eisenman arrives at the courtyard in front of the RA.
Standing over eight metres tall, Nicole Eisenman’s latest monumental work is emblematic of the artist’s expansive approach to sculpture. This totem of figures and objects is a combination of the things that nourish Eisenman’s practice, offering the viewer an abstracted self-portrait comprised of five main forms.
At the bottom, Eisenman depicts a Birkenstock-wearing artist supporting the tremendous weight of an impossibly balanced stack of people and things, which are also reminiscent of The Town Musicians of Bremen, a well-known German fairy tale. Poised to lumber forward, the artist’s progress is both implied and undermined, the figure perpetually holding out an empty glass in anticipation of wine. Balanced atop the wine barrel it carries is a potato, symbolizing the food that sustains her, while resting above it is Eisenman’s essential companion and feline muse, Edie, rendered here with an auburn coat of fur that is the result of a carefully distressed patina.
At the top is a model of the artist and Royal Academician Phyllida Barlow (1944-2023), who sits with a quiet knowing smile and holds a vase of flowers on her head. Here, Barlow becomes a symbol for the art that nourishes and inspires Eisenman’s own work, particularly her enquiry into sculptural practices.
A strong example of Eisenman’s omnivorous approach to her medium, each component is manufactured through different processes: the artist and Edie are cast in bronze, though finished in different patinas, Barlow is rendered in aluminium, and the wine barrel is made from oak.