Nicola Costantino

Nicola Costantino (*1964) is one of Argentina’s most intriguing and exciting artists. This solo exhibition of objects, installations and photographs from the 1990s to the present day offered a closer look at her fascinating and compelling work and included alienated human and animal bodies as well as the artist’s own photographic double.

At first glance Costantino’s ominous, staged and highly artificial photographs seem to confirm celebrated psychoanalytic clichés. Yet they simultaneously subvert and critique them. Replete with dramatic suspense and ambiguity, they also frequently cite images, with a touch of irony, from the abundant stores of art and film history.

Costantino’s confrontation with the animal kingdom is distinguished by both a sense of the grotesque and a fondness for her subjects, whose bodies she re-assembles to create absurdly hybrid sculptures, tinged with subtle irony and delicate subterfuge.

And finally there are her apparel and accessories fashioned from faux human skin, which ‘play’ with artifice to ring the satirical changes on the world of haute couture – prêt à porter!