Nikita Gale, SOME WEATHER

Los Angeles-based artist Nikita Gale summons a storm of colour and light to London, Seoul and Tokyo, shifting the urban climates in a major new commission that marks the CIRCA programme’s expansion from their home on Piccadilly Lights, now broadcast across screens in two new cities. Curated in collaboration with Chisenhale Gallery, London, directed by Zoé Whitley, Gale’s series of four films titled ‘SOME WEATHER’ spotlights the creative labour of Black women whose voices feature in some of rock music’s most acclaimed recordings, from the Rolling Stones to David Bowie. Four films — ‘Heat’, ‘Fog’, ‘Blizzard’, and ‘Rain’ — featured throughout June 2021, appeared daily with the unpredictability of weather patterns. Each took on a different radiant hue, employing the immensity of these cities’ advertising screens to shift the atmosphere of their respective urban settings.

In SOME WEATHER, the singers’ voices, their physical presence, and the context of their original performances blur. Each film features archival footage of background singers rendered unrecognisable, manipulated to such a degree that their images exceed the scale of easy consumption.

The artist asks us to consider what capacity such monumental screenings have to change the atmosphere of their surroundings. In a vivid haze of immersive geo-engineering, the artist re-orientates audiences to the unsung contributions of backing vocalists. Adopting writer Toni Morrison’s use of the term ‘weather’ in Beloved, Gale describes ‘weather’ as “the slippery space between bodies and atmosphere where breath joins the wind, sweat joins the ocean, and so forth. The image of these performing figures is obscured and transformed in such a way that they become visual representations of some types of weather: heat, fog, rain, and snow.” They can be experienced for a brief moment but remain ultimately inscrutable.

Gale’s work straddles image and text, memory and identity. Through explorations of human beings and their invisible yet indispensable labour, the artist reveals the inner-workings of creative production and processes of achieving innovation. In spring 2022 Chisenhale Gallery will present the first UK solo exhibition by Gale as part of their Commissions Programme.

Nikita Gale is an artist whose work examines the systems, infrastructures and forms of labour that shape contemporary culture. Working across sculpture, installation, video, sound and text, Gale investigates how power is produced and maintained through architecture, technology, performance and media, often drawing attention to the people, voices and structures that remain hidden from view.

Based in Los Angeles, Gale brings together perspectives from material culture, sound studies and social history to explore questions of authorship, visibility and value. Rather than focusing on singular narratives or individuals, the artist is interested in the networks of labour that underpin cultural production, revealing how recognition is distributed and how certain contributions are elevated while others are obscured. Through carefully constructed works that move between the physical and immaterial, Gale invites audiences to consider the systems that shape what we see, hear and remember.

In 2021, Gale collaborated with CIRCA and Chisenhale Gallery on SOME WEATHER, a major public commission presented across London, Seoul and Tokyo. Comprising four films, Heat, Fog, Blizzard and Rain, the project reflected on the often-uncredited labour of Black women whose voices helped define some of rock music’s most celebrated recordings. Drawing on archival footage transformed beyond easy recognition, Gale used monumental public screens to create atmospheric interventions that shifted the visual climate of each city while foregrounding questions of authorship, performance and cultural memory. Presented in collaboration with Chisenhale Gallery under the direction of Zoé Whitley, the commission marked an important early international partnership within CIRCA’s programme and introduced Gale’s work to audiences across multiple continents.

Gale’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including MoMA PS1, the Studio Museum in Harlem, Hammer Museum, Nottingham Contemporary and Cubitt. Through a practice that combines intellectual rigour with formal innovation, Gale continues to challenge how histories are constructed, how labour is valued and how power circulates through the cultural systems that shape contemporary life.