Elaine King Interview for Sculpture Magazine

Unruly Forms: A Conversation with Nancy Davidson

Though Nancy Davidson has worked in multiple mediums over the course of her prolific career, she is best known for her enormous, flamboyant sculptures made of latex balloons and vinyl-coated nylon. These quirky, vibrantly colored inflatables lightheartedly blend absurdity and humor, but they also raise social and political issues in an upbeat, playful manner. Their soft, lightweight, and erotically pliable characteristics serve as a purposely feminist retort to the rigidity and heaviness of male-dominated Minimalism, while comic and grotesque elements operate as “Rabelaisian” tools of celebration and social critique. Davidson’s carnival of unruly forms, inspired by everything from Eva Hesse to pop-culture icons like Mae West and cowgirls, to ancient goddesses of the Mediterranean, turn expectations upside down, seducing viewers into examining what lies beneath the surface.

Continue reading here.

Hive, 2020 Installation at Krannert Museum, Illinois: 2 18' inflatables, fabric, LED lighting program, electronic wiring Photo Credit Della Perrone

Hive, 2020 Installation at Krannert Museum, Illinois: 2 18' inflatables, fabric, LED lighting program, electronic wiring Photo Credit Della Perrone

Dustup, 2012: 16' x 20' x 20' size variable, installation photo, inflatables, fabric, rope, leather, blowers, sandbags, sawdust, sound element

Dustup, 2012: 16' x 20' x 20' size variable, installation photo, inflatables, fabric, rope, leather, blowers, sandbags, sawdust, sound element

Hive at Krannert Art Museum, 2020

Hive at Krannert Art Museum, 2020

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new exhibition at Krannert Art Museum will be visible to the public 24/7. “Hive,” combining two 18-foot-tall inflatable sculptures and an immersive sound installation, will be on view for the coming year in the glass-enclosed entrance to the Kinkead Pavilion, 500 E. Peabody Drive, Champaign.

More information here: Ancient and Modern Intersect.pdf

Cowboy Dustup by Nancy Davidson at Betty Cunningham Gallery, 2012

Cowboy Dustup by Nancy Davidson at Betty Cunningham Gallery, 2012

Nancy Davidson watched the twin towers fall from her studio on September 11, 2001. In the political activity that followed, she became devastated by what the US was turning into and started reflecting on her past experience with characters that inspired her as a child. “It wasn’t usual for me to do that,” she said. She turned to the rhinestone cowgirl: “Doris Day, the legend of the cowgirl, and the American West really inspired me as a girl. It had so little to do with me as a child in Chicago.” With this idea, she applied for a Creative Capital Award to create a series of sculptures called Cowgirl Dustup. In 2005, she received the award to make the work.

Continue reading here.

Press for p e r Sway at Locust Projects Basel Miami 

 

Terremoto.mx

p e r Sway  by  Ricardo Mor

"Locust Projects presents p e r Sway, a multimedia installation by New York-based interdisciplinary artist Nancy Davidson from November 18, 2017, through January 20, 2018. Referencing symbols of power and control, theater and performance, history and biophysics, per Sway finds Davidson holding a distorted mirror to our bizarre and horrifying political climate, a world turned upside down and gone topsy-turvy."

 

Artnews

A Look Around Miami Galleries, From the Pop-Up Spaces of Out-of-Towners to Local Stalwarts  by  Andrew Russeth

"One was a razor-sharp display of New York–based artist Nancy Davidson’s hilarious and, at moments, frighting sculptures at the stalwart local nonprofit Locust Projects. There are looming eyes, swirls of DNA, and other enlarged corporeal forms, made out of fabric and displayed together in a wildly lit room that points to Pee-wee’s Playhouse, bygone amusement parks, and ’80s dance clubs. It is a seductively sinister display, a Venus flytrap of a show."

 

The Art Newspaper

Playtime takes a sinister turn at Locust Project Exhibition by Sarah P. Hanson

 

Hyperallergic

Timely, Exciting Work by Women Artists at Miami Art Week by Monica Uszerowicz

"Locust Projects Presents A Surreal, Politically Charged Installation by Interdisciplinary Artist Nancy Davidson" an essay for the show at Locust Projects, December, 2017 

Hyperallergic_install.jpeg

Nancy Davidson: Cowgirl

Text by Jessica Brier, Renee M. Laegreid, Leisl Carr-Childers
Published by Daylight
Distributed by D.A.P.  |  Distributed  Art  Publishers

In her sculpture and installation works, New York-­based artist Nancy Davidson (born 1943), recipient of a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship, celebrates and satirizes popular culture. A central example is the American cowgirl. This publication combines archival cowgirl photographs with images of Davidson's sculptures, photographs of photographs and installations.

contact artist