Lucia Nogueira
Luhring Augustine is pleased to announce Ends Without End, a solo exhibition of works by Lucia Nogueira. Marking the artist’s second show with the gallery, and the first in our Chelsea location, the presentation will be on view from January 17 through February 22, 2025.
Celebrated for her poetic sculptures, installations, and drawings, Nogueira (1950–1998) was a Brazilian-born artist who spent much of her career in London. The city profoundly shaped her practice, and as Ian Hunt notes, she “[drew from] the strong British precedents in the 80s for sculpture as an experimental and empirical urban art form.”[1] London’s streets were also inspirational,often providing the found materials that became central to many of her works. In pieces such as Ends Without End, Nogueira evokes open-ended narratives with disparate everyday objects—a deconstructed tricycle, a displaced sink, and disjointed handrails—that are seemingly linked by silicone cords that appear and disappear as they pierce the floor and wind through the installation. Another striking work, Needle, incorporates red silicone tubing that cuts through the floor, under a glass sheet, and extends into another room. The sense of playfulness with a disquieting edge that permeates these installations is a current that runs throughout Nogueira’s oeuvre, the mundane often taking on a foreboding tone.
Nogueira’s work was also shaped by language and her experience as a non-native English speaker, her titles frequently infusing modest assemblages with layered narratives. In Full Stop, an iron post and a wooden drum are transformed by an enigmatic title that invites multiple interpretations—a phrase that suggests both an action and a moment of finality—and imbues the simple objects with an evocative tension. In Innocent, a toy creature under a glass box is juxtaposed with a wind-up mouse placed just outside of the container. Enclosed within a wooden frame, this tableau feels both ordinary and mysterious, its components transformed into characters in an unfolding drama. This duality reflects the way in which Nogueira’s work considers the tensions and the connections between her Brazilian roots and her adopted home in the UK.
Born in Brazil, Nogueira studied journalism in Brasília and photography in Washington, D.C. before moving to London in 1975, where she studied painting at Chelsea College of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. Her career was marked by significant recognition, including a Fondation Cartier fellowship in 1993 and a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award in 1996. Her work has been the subject of major exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Fundação de Serralves: Museu de Arte Contemporânea in Porto, Portugal in 2007, and a presentation at the 33rd Bienal de São Paulo in 2018. Nogueira’s work is held in prominent international collections, including Tate, London, UK; Fundação de Serralves: Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Portugal; Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Portugal; and Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Spain, among others.
[1] Hunt, Ian. Lucia Nogueira: Mischief, exh. cat. Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard, 2011.