Nicole Eisenman’s monumental Stack arrives in the Annenberg Courtyard of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, on view from September 22nd, 2026, to February 5th, 2027. Standing more than eight metres tall, the eccentric tower of five figures and objects forms a playful portrait of the people, influences and everyday pleasures woven into the artist’s life.
At its base, a Birkenstock-clad Eisenman shoulders the weight above while holding out an empty wine glass. A wine barrel rests on her back, crowned by a potato — a humble emblem of nourishment — then her cat and feline muse, Edie. At the top sits the late Royal Academician Phyllida Barlow (1944–2023), smiling as she balances a vase of flowers on her head. For Eisenman, Barlow represents the art that has nourished her practice, particularly her relationship with sculpture.
The precarious formation echoes The Town Musicians of Bremen, the German fairy tale in which animals pile one atop another. Eisenman recasts the familiar motif as an absurd monument to artistic life, linking people, animals and everyday objects through a chain of mutual dependence. Stack operates as an abstract self-portrait, weaving together friendship, art, food and domestic rituals. Its humour is laced with affection, giving physical form to the people and pleasures that have shaped Eisenman’s world.
Stack remains on view at the Royal Academy through February 5th, 2027. On September 29th, Eisenman will join curator Mark Godfrey for a conversation at the Royal Institution, organised by Hauser & Wirth. A 2022 Drawing for the Stack will also feature in Hauser & Wirth’s Frieze London presentation next month.
Drawing for the Stack, 2022. Photography by SARAH MUEHLBAUER
©️NICOLE EISENMAN
Courtesy the artist and HAUSER & WIRTH. Photography by DAMIAN GRIFFITHS
