Paola Pivi (Milan, 1971) is one of the most original and distinctive Italian artists on the international contemporary scene. After beginning studies in engineering, she enrolled at the Accademia di Brera and quickly established herself with works that overturn the viewer’s expectations with precision and irony. In 1999 she received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for the best national participation — with the now-iconic inverted fighter jet shown at the Italian Pavilion.
Her practice spans sculpture, photography, video, installation and performance, unified by a logic of the impossible made real: zebras in snow-covered alpine landscapes, polar bears covered in coloured feathers, overturned trucks, island maps drawn to a scale of 1:1. The animal world is a constant — not as a naturalistic subject but as a tool for short-circuiting perception and opening a space of wonder. She lives and works in Anchorage, Alaska. Her works are in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London and the MAXXI in Rome.
Available artworks
