biography
Born in Scalea, Italy, 1942. Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.
Drawing from the everyday female consciousness and from an oppressive, censorial dictatorship – as experienced in 1970s and 1980s Brazil – Italian-born Anna Maria Maiolino has produced works steeped in vital force, in a wide range of languages and media throughout her artistic career: from performance to sculpture, from videos to photography, installation and drawing.
Maiolino was involved in Brazil’s 1960s New Figuration movement: her representational prints and drawings from these years were acts of resistance to the national military regime, rising urban inequalities, and culturally ingrained patriarchy. She would later cultivate an interest in spatial and existential issues with a shift towards Minimalism and Conceptualism, creating installations that coaxed interaction between viewer and object. Since 1989, Maiolino has started working with clay, crafting impermanent labor-intensive installations that foreground her physical handling of the material, references to the unconscious and recurrent gestures of everyday life.
Maiolino’s works are based on processes of creation necessarily paired with destruction, and almost constantly on matters of identity, from the subjective and universal point of view. Developing a dialogue between opposing and complementary categories, her artistic practice dissolves between dichotomies between the inside and the outside, between emptiness and matter, ancient and contemporary.
Born in Scalea, Italy, 1942. Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.
Drawing from the everyday female consciousness and from an oppressive, censorial dictatorship – as experienced in 1970s and 1980s Brazil – Italian-born Anna Maria Maiolino has produced works steeped in vital force, in a wide range of languages and media throughout her artistic career: from performance to sculpture, from videos to photography, installation and drawing.
Maiolino was involved in Brazil’s 1960s New Figuration movement: her representational prints and drawings from these years were acts of resistance to the national military regime, rising urban inequalities, and culturally ingrained patriarchy. She would later cultivate an interest in spatial and existential issues with a shift towards Minimalism and Conceptualism, creating installations that coaxed interaction between viewer and object. Since 1989, Maiolino has started working with clay, crafting impermanent labor-intensive installations that foreground her physical handling of the material, references to the unconscious and recurrent gestures of everyday life.
Maiolino’s works are based on processes of creation necessarily paired with destruction, and almost constantly on matters of identity, from the subjective and universal point of view. Developing a dialogue between opposing and complementary categories, her artistic practice dissolves between dichotomies between the inside and the outside, between emptiness and matter, ancient and contemporary.
Maiolino has presented solo shows in numerous international institutions, among which: Schhhiii..., MALBA Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2022); psssiiiuuu, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2022); Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2021); SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah (2020); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019); PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2019); MOCA, Los Angeles (2017); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2014); Malmo Kunsthalle (2011); Centro Galego de Arte Contemporânea, Santiago de Compostela (2011); Fundació Antoní Tàpies, Barcelona (2010); Camden Arts Centre, London (2010); Pharos Centre for Contemporary art, Cipro (2007).
Recent group shows include: Chosen Memories, MoMA, New York (2023); Louise Bourgeois. Imaginary Conversations, Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (2023); senzamargine – Passages in Italian Art at the Turn of the Millennium, MAXXI, Rome (2020-22); Pop América, 1965–1975, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, North Carolina (2019); A Tale of Two Worlds, Museum of Modern Art Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires (2018); Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960-1985, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2017); Delirious: Art at the Limits of Reason, The Met Breuer, New York (2017); Acervo em Transformação and Histórias da Infáncia, MASP, São Paulo (2016); La Grande Madre, Palazzo Reale, Milan (2015); The World Goes Pop, Tate Modern, London (2015).
Maiolino took part to several international biennials such as: La Biennale de Lyon (2017), 10th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2014) and Documenta 13, Kassel (2012).
gallery exhibitions
images
Untitled, from Propícios [Propitious] series, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
120 × 250 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Untitled, from Propícios [Propitious] series, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
80 × 80 cm each, diptych
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Untitled, from Ações Matéricas [Matter Actions] series, 1999
Acrylic on canvas
125 × 68 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Untitled, from Ações Matéricas [Matter Actions] series, 2004
Acrylic on canvas
30 × 50 cm each, diptych
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Untitled, from Ações Matéricas [Matter Actions] series, 2009
Acrylic on canvas
71 × 100 cm each, diptych
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Na Horizontal (On the Horizontal), 2014
Metal structure with raku ceramic and shielded copper wire
240 × 120 × 20 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Untitled, serie Entre o Dentro e o Fora (from Between Inside and Outside series), 2014
Molded cement on metal table
42 × 32 × 40 cm, table: 31x36x45 cm
De: Para: (From: To:), serie Fotopoemação (from Photo-poem-action series), 1974-2016
Black and white photograph, digital print
75 × 48 cm
Untitled, série Incompletude (from the series Incompleteness), 2019
Acrylic ink on paper
100 × 70 cm
Sem título, da série Interações, 2019
Acrylic ink on paper
100 × 70 cm
Sem titulo, da série Codificações Matéricas, 1994
Acrylic ink on paper
70 × 100 cm; 78 × 108 × 4 cm framed
Sou um em Oito (I am One in Eight) – (white), 2012
Ceramic piece in cement base on metal table
Base: 62,5 x 38,5 x 23 cm Element: 58 (l) x 28 (w) x 27,5 (h) cm Metal table: 54,6 x 33,6 x 76,6 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Sou um Múltiplo de Oito (I am a Multiple of Eight) – (Black/raku), 2012
Raku ceramic piece in cement base on metal table
Base: 70 (l) x 40 (w) x 24 (h) cm Element: 58 (l) x 28 (w) x 28 (h) cm Metal table: 54,6 x 33,6 x 76,6 (h) cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Sem Título (Untitled), serie A Flor De Pele - Fotopoemação (from A Flor De Pele - Photo-poem-action series), 2009
7 color photographs, digital print
29,5 × 23,5 cm (each)
7 + 1, serie Objeto Escultórico (from Sculptural/Object series), 1999
Molded metal
15 × 210 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Untitled, serie Pequenos Ausentes (from series Little Absent series), 1996-2001
Molded cement with pigment mat
25 × 21 × 8 cm
Untitled, serie Pequenos Ausentes (from series Little Absent series), 1996-2001
Molded plaster with pigment mat
25 × 21 × 8 cm
Untitled, serie Pequenos Ausentes III (from series Little Absent III series), 1996
Molded cement with pigment
26 × 22 × 8 cm
public exhibitions
MALBA Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Schhhiii...
7.10.2022 – 20.2.2023
Photo: Nacho Isparra
Instituto Tomie Ohtake
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Psssiiiuuu...
7.5 – 24.6.2022
Photo: Ricardo Miyada
Kunsthaus Baselland
Muttenz, Switzerland
In the sky I am one and many and as a human I am everything and nothing
21.5 – 26.10.2021
Photo: Gina Folly
MAXXI – Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo
Rome, Italy
Senzamargine. Passages in Italian Art at the Turn of the Millennium
2.10 – 10.10.2020
Courtesy: Fondazione MAXXI
Whitechapel Gallery
London, UK
Anna Maria Maiolino: Making Love Revolutionary
25.9.2019 – 12.1.2020
Photo: Stephen White, Courtesy: Whitechapel Gallery
PAC
Milan, Italy
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
29.3 – 1.9.2019
Curated by Diego Sileo. Photo: Nico Covre
press
Anna Maria Maiolino Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the Biennale Arte 2024
November 2023
La mostra tra pittura e performance di Anna Maria Maiolino a Milano
Artribune
June 23, 2023
An Art in Favor of Life: A Conversation with Anna Maria Maiolino
MoMA Magazine
February 10, 2022
Anna Maria Maiolino makes unsentimental art about being a woman
Los Angeles Times
October 4, 2017
Her Other Selves. On Anna Maria Maiolino's art of becoming
Flash Art International
January 2015
publications
Anna Maria Maiolino – Psssiiiuuu
Instituto Tomie Ohtake
Sao Paulo
2022
Out of focus. Il libro fotografico nelle collezioni della Galleria Nazionale
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
Rome
2021
Anna Maria Maiolino: Making Love Revolutionary
Whitechapel Gallery
London
2019
Anna Maria Maiolino: O amor se faz revolucionário
Silvana Editoriale
Milan
2019
Anna Maria Maiolino
The Museum of Contemporary Art, DelMonico Books
New York
2017
Anna Maria Maiolino. Anna’s Skin
Cosac & Naify Edições
São Paulo
2016
Anna Maria Maiolino
König Books
London
2011
Anna Maria Maiolino – Vida Afora / A Life Line
The New York Drawing Center
New York
2002
video
Anna Maria Maiolino, AL DI LÀ DI
2019
Performance di Anna Maria Maiolino, con la partecipazione dell'artista Gaya Rachel e la collaborazione di Flavio Kactuz, prodotta dal PAC Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea di Milano.
Anna Maria Maiolino: Making Love Revolutionary
2019
Anna Maria Maiolino: Making Love Revolutionary at Whitechapel Gallery, 25 September 2019 – 12 January 2020. Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery.
In Atto
2015
Performance by Anna Maria Maiolino with Sandra Lessa at Galleria Raffaella Cortese, via Stradella 1, Milan. April 30, 2015. Video by Alessandro Lentati.
