A Panel Etched with ‘Blood,’ ‘Nerves’ and ‘Knee’

In each installment of The Artists, T highlights a recent or little-seen work by a Black artist and offers a few words from that artist putting the work in context. This week, we’re looking at “Body Print: Blood” (2022), one of six inscribed aluminum panels in a series by Nikita Gale. The pieces appear in “End of Subject,” Gale’s new solo exhibition, on view at Manhattan’s 52 Walker gallery through March 26.

Name: Nikita Gale

Age: 38

Based in: Los Angeles

Originally from: Anchorage, Alaska

Where and when did you make this work?

This is a brand-new work for a big, lovely space in Tribeca called 52 Walker. I worked on it from last October to December, and in Los Angeles and New York.

Can you describe what’s going on in the work?

The pieces in my “Body Print” series were made through a process of etching and removal of the surface of large rectangular panels of aluminum. They are a continuation of my interests in performance and the relationships between absence and presence, specifically the ways that humans often indicate presence through the removal or extraction of material: Think of encountering carved initials in a tree, or handprints in the concrete of a sidewalk. The titles are based on materials that any human body would contain, like bones, breath and blood. This one is called “Body Print: Blood,” and, as with all the panels, I etched words onto its surface that exist on a kind of spectrum for describing a person. The terms go from those for the physical material of the body to those that are more relational, like “father,” “sister,” “child.” What emerges are these indexes of systems that define our ideas of what makes a human being.

Each of the panels is paired with a small spotlight whose light spills off the aluminum and onto the surrounding space. I often use spotlights in my work because of their status as what Jenny Odell, an artist and the author of “How to Do Nothing” (2019), refers to as “attention-holding architecture.” Essentially, they’re objects that tell you where to look and direct attention in a way that I find really seductive. I’m a big pop-music fan, and, at concerts, I see how spotlights direct the viewer’s gaze. For years, I’ve been fascinated by the ways that objects condition social behaviors. That ties into this larger conversation about power and authority and how those systems direct our bodies to move in certain ways, look at particular things or receive certain types of information. So the spotlight is a useful metaphor for thinking about power in the context of the public arena: The stage, or wherever we focus our attention, represents where power is concentrated.

What inspired you to make it?

I was thinking about artists who have worked in this tradition of body prints, which rely on the body as a mark-making tool. Of course, David Hammons came to mind immediately. The making of his “Body Prints” in the 1960s and ’70s was a type of performance: In the studio, he covered his body or someone else’s in baby oil or grease, pressed the body against a surface like paper or fabric and applied pigmented powder or charcoal. In my series, I’m interested in using language to examine different systems that render a body legible as human, gendered, racialized and so on.

What’s a work of art in any medium that changed your life?

In 2013, the ICA Philadelphia had a show called “Jason Rhoades, Four Roads.” One of the included pieces was “The Creation Myth,” a gallery-size installation of smoke machines, monitors, projectors, paint buckets and more that the artist originally created in 1998. I was so blown away by the meticulous detail, and how all the materials were thoroughly worked through. It was a profound experience, seeing that show. I remember walking through it and feeling as though I was being given permission to do something. It’s very rare for that to happen, but when it does, it really sticks with me.

This interview has been edited and condensed.