By combining miniature sets with multigenerational actors and life-size objects, Nicosia creates disorienting, fanciful imagery. Over the course of his career Nicosia has explored his world through situations staged for the camera. Mixing reality and fantasy, Nicosia has expertly uncovered the unseemly truths about middle-American life, exposing the fear, horror, lust, violence, perversion, and humor that bubble beneath a perfectly manicured facade. In an age where truth can be stranger than fiction, Nicosia creates a world that hovers somewhere in between.

Nicosia began making photographs in the late 1970s at a time when the modernist dogma of photography was under fire. While modern masters such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston had extolled the camera’s ability to capture and deliver truth, a new generation emerged that questioned photography’s authority and sought to expose its inherent artificiality. These young photographers staged tableaux and manipulated their works, all the while using the “truthfulness” of the medium to create believable fictions. Rather than adhere to established tenets, these artists demonstrated a concern for idea, content, and a visually significant statement.

Nicosia’s work is concerned with the information that is received from a photograph, and he shoots his images with that in mind. Nicosia’s new series, Untitled 2002, is closely based on images that appeared in the artist’s dreams — bits of mind flotsam organized into incomprehensible dramas. His new film, entitled SaFe at 360° and commissioned by SITE Santa Fe, turns the camera on the Southwestern landscapes that motivated Nicosia to make numerous road trips. While creating the film, Nicosia photographed panoramic highway views between Dallas and Santa Fe, Taos and Santa Fe, and Albuquerque and Santa Fe. He then created miniature sets of the landscapes, and rephotographed the sets. The film will be accompanied by a soundtrack produced by the artist. Three of Nicosia’s videos–Cerchi e Quadratti, Moving Picture, and Middletown–will be projected with sound on the east side of SITE Santa Fe’s building every Friday evening after dark during the run of the exhibition.

Nicosia was born in Dallas in 1951, the second of four children. He has spent his whole life living and working in Dallas. Nicosia attended the University of North Texas where he earned a degree in radio, television, and film.

Nic Nicosia is organized by SITE Santa Fe, courtesy of the artist; Dunn and Brown Contemporary, Dallas; and P.P.O.W., New York. SITE Santa Fe’s Projection Room is partially funded by Sharp Electronics Corporation. Concurrent with Nic Nicosia, SITE Santa Fe will present a survey of works by the acclaimed Venezuelan artist José Antonio Hernández-Diez, organized by the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, and co-curated by Dan Cameron, senior curator, and Gerardo Mosquera, adjunct curator, New Museum of Contemporary Art.