Massimo de Carlo

Paola Pivi

19 Sep - 18 Oct 2008

Paola Pivi
Installation view
© courtesy of the Artist and Galleria Massimo De Carlo
PAOLA PIVI
"It's a cocktail party"

19th September 2008 - 18th October 2008

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 CriÇe 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.

Paola thinks of herself as a sculptor - I think.
She takes away from reality limits, boredom, preconceived ideas, to reveal wider spaces of possibility.
There's no point to demonstrate no reaction suggested to the viewer. Works are born off "images" in her head and lots of effort. A plane can lay upside down, a donkey can decide to take a boat trip, or zebras to spend a weekend on the snow.
Luce Sibilla Balzarini
 

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