15527 001

It’s a Cocktail Party

Dates
19.09.2008 | 18.10.2008
Location
Massimo De Carlo, Milano
Paola Pivi, born in Milan in 1971, lives and works in Anchorage (Alaska). Her first solo exhibition was in 1998 at this same gallery: a performance, 100 Cinesi, in which a hundred Chinese people wearing all the same sorts of clothes were gathered to form a square in the exhibition space. On the occasion of this solo exhibition at Galleria Massimo De Carlo, opening on Friday, September 19 through Saturday, October 18, 2008, Paola Pivi presents the work conceived specifically for Portikus, the exhibition hall for contemporary art in Frankfurt am Main. Nine objects made of polished steel are on view, each consisting of a five-meter height pipe, a pump, and a basin. In each installation, a fluid is circulating continuously. The fluids, including red wine, coffee, water, orange juice, black ink, glycerin, asperula, orgeat, and face lotion, drop in one massive jet from the pipe's opening into the basin. During the past few years, Paola Pivi has been represented at important solo exhibition such as It just keeps getting better at the Kunsthalle Basel and You gotta be kidding me at La Criée centre d’art contemporain in Rennes, both in 2007. In 2006, her major solo show My religion is kindness. Thank you, see you in the future at Fondazione Trussardi in Milan. Paola also displayed at the 5th. Berlin Biennale in 2008, showing the work: If you like it, thank you. If you don’t like it, I am sorry. Enjoy anyway.

The Artist

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Paola pivi ph lady tarin 2
Paola Pivi

Born in Italy in 1971, Paola Pivi’s artistic practice is diverse and enigmatic.


For Pivi, art is an expression of reality liberated to its fullest potential, conveying the most profound emotions through diverse materials. Her art often features recognisable objects like airplanes, polar bears, and pearls. However, Pivi modifies these objects unexpectedly, encouraging her audience to reconsider their preconceived notions of what they represent. Through this approach, she creates a unique form of utopian extravagance, continuously exploring new expressive forms and pushing the boundaries of artistic creation.


One of Pivi's most captivating series is her Pearls artworks. Accumulation of lines of pearls, these paintings decline a nuancier of colors going from the ivory to the black whose declinations of tints celebrate the various colors of the skin. To realize them, Pivi appropriated the result of the “work” of a multitude of oysters. She has also seized on the similarity between the painter’s work on a canvas and the action of an oyster that deposits layer after layer of nacre on the pearl.


Pivi's art is a statement on the human experience, exploring the boundaries between reality and imagination, ordinary and extraordinary.