Nick D’Alessandro, Universal September at Prairie, Chicago

Today I wore every one of my
string beads
my very best
rag necklace
dried ashes and shredded

as
armor

instead of
Second Nature

I followed the call coming from
that familiar hole
in the ground

I descended blindly

Seeking roots
and
the promise of
hidden life

Untouched and unscathed
I’m all over it, with conviction

for all those fragile heaps of
what you might call
long
short
or nothing

Disappearing agent
Climbing up a fallen tree

Wooden disgusting
just my type

I ran my hands through
soft little pricks
near invisible
like the most beautiful song
God would let you hear
for five seconds or something
out of a window or a car

I’ve gutted myself out now
Tattooed copper down my spine and back

Robbed the universe,
borrowed it too

I hung it up to dry
or die
or get better

It took a village of my own making
to
Soak
Bury
Clench
Release
and
Kill
what an older woman might consider a thing of beauty

I wore it down all day and night
Through work of shadow and light
I was built to destroy

• Julia Marks

Universal September frames the gallery as a runway of perfect circular destruction. The weavings hang in a fragile equilibrium, some degraded so far they no longer hold as whole objects. Using a lap-sized loom, D’Alessandro hand-wove each piece before contaminating it with various substances. Now leftovers—cut off from both a past and future—the works are hoarded, enacting a paradox of decay through accumulation. Some hangings attempt to be preserved, rubbered in latex or epoxy. The rest have a certain disintegration. There is no end product. The works let go of the moment of manufacture and instead seek obsolescence in the fabrication of destruction.

Nick D’Alessandro (b. 2000, Massachusetts; lives in Chicago) received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2023). D’Alessandro’s work has been exhibited locally at LVL3 (2025), Sawhorse (2025), Weatherproof (2025), and EXPO Chicago (2023). He has also exhibited internationally at EST Galerie, Paris (2026), NADA (2024), Gern en Regalia (2023), and GBA Gallery (2023). His work has been published in Hyperallergic, NewCity, Document Journal, and Like a Field.