biography
Born in Scalea, Italy, 1942. Lives and works in Sao 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 Sao 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: 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: senzamargine – Passages in Italian Art at the Turn of the Millennium, MAXXI, Rome (2021); 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, Sao Paulo (2016); La Grande Madre, Palazzo Reale, Milan (2015); The World Goes Pop, Tate Modern, London (2015). Maiolino has been invited to several international biennials such as La Biennale de Lyon (2017), 10th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2014) and Documenta 13, Kassel (2012).
gallery exhibitions
images
Sem título, da série Incompletude, 2019
Acrylic ink on paper
100 × 70 cm
Photo: Nicola Morittu
Sem título, da série Interações, 2019
Acrylic ink on paper
100 × 70 cm
Photo: Nicola Morittu
Sem Título (Untitled), serie Corpo/Paisagem - Fotopoemação (from Body/Landscape - Photopoemaction series), 2018
Photo in b/w, digital print
60 × 90 cm; 61.5 × 91.5 cm framed, each
Sem Título (Untitled), serie Corpo/Paisagem - Fotopoemação (from Body/Landscape - Photopoemaction series), 2018
Photo in b/w, digital print
60 × 90 cm; 61.5 × 91.5 cm framed, each
Sem Título (Untitled), serie Corpo/Paisagem - Fotopoemação (from Body/Landscape - Photopoemaction series), 2018
Photo in b/w, digital print
60 × 90 cm; 61.5 × 91.5 cm framed, each
Sem Título (Untitled), serie Corpo/Paisagem - Fotopoemação (from Body/Landscape - Photopoemaction series), 2018
Photo in b/w, digital print
60 × 90 cm; 61.5 × 91.5 cm framed, each
Sem Título (Untitled), serie Corpo/Paisagem - Fotopoemação (from Body/Landscape - Photopoemaction series), 2018
Photo in b/w, digital print
60 × 90 cm; 61.5 × 91.5 cm framed, each
Sem Título (Untitled), serie Corpo/Paisagem - Fotopoemação (from Body/Landscape - Photopoemaction series), 2018
Photo in b/w, digital print
60 × 90 cm; 61.5 × 91.5 cm framed, each
Sem Título (Untitled), serie Vida Afora - Fotopoemação (from Vida Afora - Photo-poem-action series), 2006/2012
Black and white photograph, digital print
35,5 × 29,5 cm
High Tension, serie Fotopoemação (from Photo-poem-action series), 1976-2010
Black and white photograph, digital print
34 × 47 cm
De: Para: (From: To:), serie Fotopoemação (from Photo-poem-action series), 1974-2016
Black and white photograph, digital print
75 × 48 cm
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
Untitled, from Filogenéticos [Phylogenetic] series, 2014
Acrylic ink on paper
45,5 × 30,5 cm
Untitled, from De Volta series, 2014
Acrylic ink on paper
45,5 × 30,5 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Untitled, 2014
Acrylic ink on paper
71,5 × 46,5 cm
Untitled, from Meandro series, 2014
Acrylic ink on paper
45,5 × 30,5 cm
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
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
Untitled, from series Elaborações, 2012
Photos in color, wooden frame, metal
72 × 148,5 × 77,2 cm overall
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Untitled, from series Elaborações, 2012
Photos in color, wooden frame, metal
72 × 148,5 × 77,2 cm overall
Untitled, from series Elaborações, 2012
Photos in color, wooden frame, metal
72 × 143 × 76,1 cm overall
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Untitled, from series Elaborações, 2012
Photos in color, wooden frame, metal
72 × 143 × 76,1 cm overall
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)
Untitled, 2008
Pen on paper
32 × 24 cm
Sem Título (Untitled), serie Alice - Fotopoemação (from Alice - Photo-poem-action series), 2007
Color photograph, digital print
37 × 51,5 cm framed
Sem Título (Untitled), serie Alice - Fotopoemação (from Alice - Photo-poem-action series) - Anna the mirror, 2007
Black and white photograph, digital print
31 × 46 cm
Sem Título (Untitled), serie Leonardo Engenho-Fotopoemação (from series Leonardo Engenho - Photo-poem-action series), 2007
Color photograph, digital print
110 × 79 cm
Ela foi (She went), serie Aqui & Lá (from Here and There series), 2007
Color photograph, digital print
50 × 35 cm
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 III (from series Little Absent III series), 1996
Molded cement with pigment
26 × 22 × 8 cm
Untitled, serie Pequenos Ausentes (from series Little Absent series), 1996-2001
Molded plaster with pigment mat
25 × 21 × 8 cm
Sem titulo, da série Codificações Matéricas, 1994
Acrylic ink on paper
70 × 100 cm; 78 × 108 × 4 cm framed
public exhibitions
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
Senzamargine. Passages in Italian Art at the Turn of the Millennium
2.10 – 10.10.2020
Courtesy: Fondazione MAXXI
MAXXI – Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo
Rome
Senzamargine. Passages in Italian Art at the Turn of the Millennium
2.10 – 10.10.2020
Courtesy: Fondazione MAXXI
Whitechapel Gallery
London
Anna Maria Maiolino: Making Love Revolutionary
25.9.2019 – 12.1.2020
Photo: Stephen White, Courtesy: Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery
London
Anna Maria Maiolino: Making Love Revolutionary
25.9.2019 – 12.1.2020
Photo: Stephen White, Courtesy: Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery
London
Anna Maria Maiolino: Making Love Revolutionary
25.9.2019 – 12.1.2020
Photo: Stephen White, Courtesy: Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery
London
Anna Maria Maiolino: Making Love Revolutionary
25.9.2019 – 12.1.2020
Photo: Stephen White, Courtesy: Whitechapel Gallery
PAC
Milan
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
29.3 – 1.9.2019
Curated by Diego Sileo. Photo: Nico Covre
PAC
Milan
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
29.3 – 1.9.2019
Curated by Diego Sileo. Photo: Nico Covre
PAC
Milan
2019-03-29
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
1.9.2019
Curated by Diego Sileo. Photo: Nico Covre
PAC
Milan
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
29.3 – 1.9.2019
Curated by Diego Sileo. Photo: Nico Covre
PAC
Milan
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
29.3 – 1.9.2019
Curated by Diego Sileo. Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
PAC
Milan
2019-03-29
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
29.3 – 1.9.2019
Curated by Diego Sileo. Photo: Nico Covre
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
PAC
Milan
Performance: Al di là di
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
PAC
Milan
Performance: Al di là di
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
PAC
Milan
Performance: Al di là di
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
PAC
Milan
Performance: Al di là di
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
Anna Maria Maiolino - O AMOR SE FAZ REVOLUCIONÁRIO
PAC
Milan
Performance: Al di là di
Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri
press
Anna Maria Maiolino and Ana Mendieta Take The Stage at Galleria Raffaella Cortese
Widewalls
December 8, 2019
Anna Maria Maiolino: ‘I’m not an artist you can pigeonhole’
Financial Times
October 3, 2019
‘I Allowed Myself to Be Eaten’: Anna Maria Maiolino on the Cultural Cannibalism of Brazil
Frieze
August 18, 2019
publications
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
Prestel
Munich
2017
Ana Maria Maiolino : Anna's skin
Cosac & Naify Edições
São Paulo
2016
Anna Maria Maiolino
König Books
London
2010
Vida Afora / a Life Line
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.
