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Ötzi at Praise Shadows: Solo Exhibition by Nicole Wilson

Past exhibition
27 May - 27 June 2021
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Overview
Ötzi at Praise Shadows, Solo Exhibition by Nicole Wilson

In the 1990s, a body was discovered in the Alps on the border of Austria and Italy. This glacier mummy is now known as Ötzi, a Copper Age male (scientists date him to 3300 BCE) whose body is preserved, cared for, and researched at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Italy. According to the museum, “61 tattoos were found on Ötzi’s body, all in the form of lines or crosses. Unlike modern tattoos, they were not made with a needle; they were fine incisions into which pulverised charcoal was rubbed. The tattoos are located near his ribcage and lumbar spine, on his wrist, knee, calves and ankles.” Ötzi is considered the oldest tattooed human mummy yet discovered (in 2018, nearly contemporaneous tattooed mummies were discovered in Egypt).

 

A world away in the United States, the artist Nicole Wilson learned about Ötzi, Europe's oldest known natural human mummy. An artist who has focused on sculpture and durational, process-driven works, Wilson created this work because “Ötzi stands in for an archetype, his marks are the signifiers without the signified. In that way, I saw an opportunity to use that lack of meaning (or our inability to to find meaning) as a way to go further of what this mummy means to us contemporaneously and access him as an archetypal figure of ‘man’.”

 

In 2012, using the most current research available on Ötzi, Wilson tattooed images of the mummy’s 59 known tattoos on her body using her own blood. Her body reabsorbed almost all of the blood back into itself immediately following the tattooing, but left behind dark scars where heme, the pigment within blood, slowly disappeared from the skin’s surface.

 

In 2016, Wilson decided to re-execute this project following a new study that discovered more tattoos on Ötzi. Researchers used non-invasive multi-spectral photographic imaging techniques and found that there were more tattoos on Ötzi than originally believed. The research confirmed that the corpse contains 61 total tattoos divided into 19 groups. 

 

Over the next four years, Wilson documented the tattoos as they faded. Photographs of this process will be on view in the exhibition, and are included in the forthcoming artist book. 

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Installation Views
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TJ Proechel for Praise Shadows Art Gallery
Works
  • Nicole Wilson Ötzi: Special Edition, 2021
    Nicole Wilson
    Ötzi: Special Edition, 2021
    Nicole Wilson, Ötzi: Special Edition, 2021
    Sold
    $ 531.25
  • Nicole Wilson Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_01, 2021
    Nicole Wilson
    Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_01, 2021
  • Nicole Wilson Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_02, 2021
    Nicole Wilson
    Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_02, 2021
  • Nicole Wilson Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_03, 2021
    Nicole Wilson
    Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_03, 2021
  • Nicole Wilson Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_05, 2021
    Nicole Wilson
    Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_05, 2021
  • Nicole Wilson Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_06, 2021
    Nicole Wilson
    Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_06, 2021
  • Nicole Wilson Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_07, 2021
    Nicole Wilson
    Ötzi: Tattoo Design T_07, 2021
Videos
  • Artist Talk: Nicole Wilson & Nina Katchadourian

    Artist Talk: Nicole Wilson & Nina Katchadourian

    Read more
  • Artist Talk: Nicole Wilson, Amy Whitaker, Charlie Jarvis, & Max Kendrick

    Artist Talk: Nicole Wilson, Amy Whitaker, Charlie Jarvis, & Max Kendrick

    Read more
  • Instagram Live with Nicole Wilson and Dr. Albert R. Zink

    Instagram Live with Nicole Wilson and Dr. Albert R. Zink

    Read more
Press
  • Nicole Wilson: Ötzi

    OSMOS Magazine, October 1, 2023
  • Bodies on the Blockchain

    Katie Peyton Hofstadter, Right Click Save, July 9, 2022
  • Nicole Wilson's Ancient Tattoo Focused Exhibition Ötzi, Concludes Four-City Tour in London

    Mark Westall , FAD Magazine, June 6, 2022
  • This Is the Story of the Artist Who Has Made a Career Tattooing Herself Like Europe’s Famed ‘Iceman’ Mummy

    Sarah Cascone, Artnet News, November 9, 2021
  • Matching Tattoos Across Human History

    Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, June 9, 2021
  • How Blockchain Can Help Create 'A Sustainable Future for Artists'

    Natachi Onwuamaegbu, The Boston Globe, May 12, 2021
  • LINKED TO THE PAST - ARTIST GETS OLDEST TATTOOS IN HER OWN BLOOD

    INKED Magazine Staff, Inked Magazine, October 10, 2018

Related artist

  • Nicole Wilson

    Nicole Wilson

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