Nancy Lupo's Dream House: Novel and Exhibition Explore Unmoored Fantasies

Nancy Lupo's debut novel 'Meow Meow Real Estate' (2026) and her exhibition 'Several Chickens Later' at Spike Island, Bristol, through 6 September, form the culmination of a ten-exhibition omnibus project across the UK, Europe, and the US. The novel, a oneiric roman à clef, chronicles an itinerant artist's search for an apartment, with fragments serving as supplementary texts for the exhibitions. At Spike Island, Lupo tints the gallery yellow with napkins taped over skylights, creating a disorienting haze. Central to the show is 'The Enclosure', a three-quarter-scale polished replica of a Victorian bay window from the Fiorucci Foundation's Chelsea apartment, where Lupo previously staged a 'for sale' open house. Scattered around are 'tellers'—wilted pyramidal sculptures of glue, paper towels, and pearlescent paint—repurposed from earlier shows, including 'Disko' (2025) at Kunstverein Kevin in Vienna, where they represented icebergs. 'The fall leaves. The leaves falling' features peeled paper towels with Thanksgiving patterns, some animated by motors. Lupo's sculptures evoke the tenuousness of fantasy, with visible mechanics and ambivalent scales that challenge immersion.