Paola Pivi

Ranging between sculpture, video, photography, performance and installation, her work transcends perceived limits, making possible what once seemed impossible. We find zebras frolicking at the North Pole, brightly coloured polar bears practising yoga, a Piper Seneca aeroplane rising on the tips of its wings and constantly turning on itself or, as in the installation commissioned in 2022 by the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, 250 pairs of shoes, 125 of them brand new and 125 matching pairs showing heavy wear, mounted like trophies on a wall to underline the performative activity and daily life common to all.

She has received several awards including the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale for the best national pavilion (shared with other female artists) and, in 2011, Fellowship of the American Academy in Rome. Her works are found in prestigious permanent collections, including those of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and the Castello di Rivoli in Turin, and MAXXI the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome.

She has exhibited in leading museums and galleries, including: the Musée d' Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1999); P.S.1 MoMA, New York (2000, 2001, 2003, 2007), MACRO, Rome (2003, 2010); Brown University, Providence (2004); MCA - Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago (2005), the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2005), White Columns, New York (2005), MassArt – Massachusetts College of Art, Boston (2006), the Hayward Gallery, London (2005), the Fondazione Trussardi, Milan (2006); Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2007); Portikus, Frankfurt (2008), Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2008), Tate Modern, London (2009), Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2010); Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2012), Dallas Contemporary, Dallas (2016), The Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach (2018), the MAXXI Museum, Rome (2019), Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen (2020), and the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (2022).