Paola Pivi

Born in Italy in 1971, Paola Pivi’s artistic practice is diverse and enigmatic. Commingling the familiar with the alien, Pivi often works with commonly identifiable objects which are modified to introduce a new scale, material, or color, challenging the audience to change their point of view. Animals are often cast as protagonists in Pivi’s world. She draws upon their perceived characteristics and instills them with human mannerisms. In Pivi’s art, polar bears practice yoga, hang from trapezes, and engage with one another. Sprouting multicolored feathers, the artworks are both life-sized and miniaturized as baby bears. Spanning sculpture, video, photography, performance, and installation, Pivi’s practice trespasses perceived limits to make possible what before seemed impossible. Zebras frolic in the Arctic, goldfish fly on airplanes, and in her 2012 Public Art Fund installation, a Piper Seneca airplane was lifted on its wingtips and installed to constantly rotate forward.

Paola Pivi has held numerous solo exhibitions at major institutions, including the Musée d'art contemporain in Marseille, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, New York’s High Line, and the Aspen Art Museum. Her work has also appeared at the Bass Museum in Miami and La Vieille Charité in Marseille, among others. She has exhibited internationally at venues such as Fondazione Prada, Hamburger Bahnhof, Whitechapel Gallery, MoMA PS1, and the Venice Biennale. Pivi lives and works on the Island of Hawai‘i and has many more exhibitions to her credit worldwide.