LA Artcore is pleased to present The sky
broke when I was allowed to fly. / Se rompió
el cielo cuando me dejaron volar., a
multimedia solo exhibition by Nicole
Rademacher, on view May 16 through June
15, 2026. The opening reception will be held
on Saturday, May 16, from 5–7pm.
At the center of this exhibition is the word
allow, pressed until it cracks, opening into
author-ization. Who gets to claim a story,
construct a history, call something theirs?
Who is the author? Rademacher is a Latina
transracial domestic adoptee — born in the
US, raised in a white family, and structurally
separated from her birth culture not by
geography but by the terms of her adoption.
“I’m not reclaiming what was lost. I’m claiming
what I was never given.
”
— Nicole Rademacher
Developed over three years — including research trips to Monterrey, Mexico, where Rademacher connected with her extended biological family — The sky broke when I was allowed to fly. brings together a 16-channel video installation, porcelain pieces, erasure drawings, single-channel video, and an installation of veladoras at various stages of burn. Sixteen suspended vellum screens carry footage recorded during Rademacher’s visits to Monterrey, forming an immersive landscape of light and translation in which audio and image are intentionally out of sync — a formal enactment of the gap between what is seen and what is understood. Ceramic works inscribed with Rademacher’s own words, erasure drawings on archival paper, and a genealogical text (authored by her father’s cousin) transferred in graphite to the gallery wall extend this inquiry into memory, inheritance, and what accumulates — or fails to — when access is denied. The sky broke when I was allowed to fly. is supported by an Individual Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council, a grant from Adoptees for Awareness, and the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
Nicole Rademacher is a Board Certified Art Therapist (ATR-BC), Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), and interdisciplinary artist whose practice moves between multimedia installation, clinical work, and community-engaged programming. Within the field of museotherapy, she has developed a somatic protocol that integrates deep looking at artwork with reflective art-making. She has implemented this protocol at LACMA, the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Getty Research Institute. The sky broke when I was allowed to fly. is her first solo exhibition.
