Spike Island presents Several Chickens Later, Nancy Lupo (b.1983, Flagstaff, AZ)’s largest exhibition in the UK to date, including new sculptures that probe aspirations, ambiguities and material culture. In her work, which encompasses sculpture, video, writing, sound, drawing, painting, performance and architecturally specific installation, Lupo reflects on how collective fantasies and emotions become embedded in form. She often describes her work as being scripted or held together through a thin thread of narrative which she explores through writing that she publishes as zines, and soon, in her first novel, Meow Meow Real Estate.

In this novel, Lupo recounts the story of a woman looking for an apartment. The search is both literal and existential. An epic drama of regular things, dreams and distortions are intertwined. The trajectory comes to an end in The Clock House, a storied Victorian flat located in the residential neighbourhood of Chelsea, in London.

What is left once projections turn into possession?

The exhibition at Spike Island prolongs the reverie and the longing for domesticity. It refuses a reality-check, and loops back into wistful illusion. Although the mirage is tired, its feeble flame still somehow persists. A corpus of newly commissioned sculptures, playing with the scale and industrial grandeur of Spike Island’s galleries, evokes the fragility of our endeavours, and the futility of our fantasies.

#### Nancy Lupo

Nancy Lupo (b. 1983, USA) received her BFA from The Cooper Union, New York City, NY and her MFA from Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Selected solo exhibitions of Lupo’s work include: Meow Meow Real Estate, Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, London (2026); Tom, Stadtgalerie Bern (2026); Disko, Kevin Space, Vienna (2025); Princessletthewind, Kunstverein für Mecklenburg und Vorpommern, Schwerin, Germany (2025); Scripts for the Pageant at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, CA (2019); The Square at Noon at the Visual Arts Center in Austin, TX (2019) ; Parent and Parroting, Swiss Institute, New York City, NY (2016). Her work has previously been acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw. In 2024, she has been appointed as a professor at Kunsthochschule Mainz. She lives and works in Berlin.

Partners and Supporters

Several Chickens Later includes a work co-produced by Spike Island and the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation (London). With thanks to Raven Row (London). The exhibition is generously supported by Antenna Space.

Image credit
1. Nancy Lupo, 'Meow Meow Real Estate' at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation (2026). Courtesy of Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation and the artist
2. Nancy Lupo, 'The Repository' (2026). Photography by Dulcie Wagstaff
3. Nancy Lupo, 'The Mirage' (2025-26). Photography by Dulcie Wagstaff