Nicolo Gentile is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. He received his Master of Fine Art in Sculpture from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University and his Bachelor of Fine Art from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in General Fine Arts. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Commonweal Gallery, Temple Contemporary, and Automat (Philadelphia), Fragment Gallery and Trestle Gallery, (New York), The Vault (Denver), LVL3 (Chicago), Portland Contemporary and Carnation Contemporary (Portland, OR), SOIL and The Vestibule (Seattle) TSA LA and Last Projects (Los Angeles), Paris, and Melbourne. He is a recent recipient of the Velocity Fund administered by Philadelphia Contemporary and supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program and is an Artist in Residence at the Fitler Club Philadelphia. Gentile currently teaches at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and has guest lectured at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland State University, and Nazareth College.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I wish my PrEP medication made me feel like I was taking part in something, but so far it’s only softened my bowels.
This is not the fire in my belly I had anticipated.
My work is an investigation of presence, absence and ecstasy. From the gym to the showers, from the dance floor to the bedroom, I examine the physical conditions of relational identity and sexuality construction. Inspired by politically motivated 1990s abstraction responding to the AIDS epidemic, my work looks to reclaim the critical capacity of the queer minimalist gesture in a time of gay pragmatism, assimilation, and continued alienation.
I am inspired by the materials and conditions of queer transgression which inform my sculpture and installations. Composed of leather, latex, iron and steel, my sculptures and installations slip between recognizable materials of kink, industry and sport to address the oscillating power dynamics of whiteness, gender and masculinities.
A child of the 90s, I am part of a queer generation that came of age in the wake of tragedy. My work is an exercise in withstanding the seemingly divergent pull of nostalgic longing and queer futurity, one tied to my ankles, the other to my wrists.
GOODSPORT : GAME FOR ANYTHING
Life is too short to play by the rules. At GoodSport™, this is what moves us. As a creative enterprise, we aim to create an alternative physical and psychological reality that complicates contemporary expressions of health and masculinity through the production of sports-based art objects as luxury goods. We are inspired by a triple threat of aesthetics, (homo)eroticism, and athletics.
The GoodSport™ is a collection of objects constructed under environmental and social considerations similar to those imposed on the athletic, queer, male body. They aim to perform within the confines of multiple realities of masculinity simultaneously. In doing so, these objects queer, obfuscate, redefine and obstruct a linear legibility of gender and aesthetics. The objects reside at the intersection of their functional use, excellent performativity, and aesthetic worth. But, to which arena do they actually belong?