op.cit. is proud to present Eternity is a hell of a long time, the first exhibition in Mexico of the artist Nick Fagan realized with the generous support of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Text by Esteban King

The work of American artist Nick Fagan proposes an approach to the life and memory of objects through the use of found and recycled materials. Following this line of work, for his first exhibition in Mexico the artist presents a series of pieces made with recycled and intervened blankets and crochet quilts, as well as a large sculpture made with blankets and wood.

As they are working materials that are used over and over again, the moving blankets keep on their surface the traces of the objects that pass through their folds, as well as of the spaces through which they pass. This daily use generates complex surfaces that contain, like a palimpsest, layers and layers of stories within themselves.

The surfaces of these industrial and worn-out canvases are intervened by Fagan through stitching where figures appear, full of chromatic and spatial rhythms, with titles that point to a certain iconographic condition. In this operation, which appeals to both the tradition of tapestry and pictorial practices, the artist's interest in breaking disciplinary boundaries and experimenting with different materials becomes clear.

In addition, the exhibition presents a selection of reused crochet quilts, the popular weaving method used to make everything from clothing and dolls to tablecloths and blankets. In this case, the artist intervenes a series of quilts with his own handwork to generate pieces that depict two-dimensional vessels containing faces with different expressions, as a result of the moods with which they were made. The sculpture of the exhibition, on the other hand, consists precisely of a large vessel made with blankets thanks to an underlying wooden scaffolding, which has been created specifically for the space of op.cit.

As the title of the show indicates, Fagan's work is traversed by humor, another everyday element that he recovers in an opposite direction to the parsimony and solemnity characteristic of the circuits and discourses of contemporary art. In line with the use of these apparently banal materials, Eternity is a hell of a long time stands as an ironic reminder to look again, with a renewed gaze, at objects and details linked to our everyday experience.

Nick Fagan (Washington D.C. 1992) is a multimedia artist living and working in Cape Cod. He has exhibited his work in numerous galleries and exhibitions throughout the United States, most recently at Egg Collective in New York, Massey Klein Gallery in New York, Tops Gallery in Memphis, Tennessee, as well as the Seattle Art Fair with FFT and Future Art with ADA Gallery. He has received fellowships and residencies from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the MASS MoCA Studio Program and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. His work has been cited or reviewed in several publications including Burnaway, NPR, Divergents Magazine, New American Paintings and The Rib. Recent awards include The Foundation of Contemporary Arts and the Grant Kennedy VSA Artists with Disabilities Award. Fagan holds an MFA in Sculpture from The Ohio State University, 2017 and BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University.