NEW YORK, NY.- You know who I am by Paola Pivi is a
High Line Art Commission and her first artwork cast in bronze.
Fonderia Artistica Battaglia and its artisans guided Pivi throughout the fabrication process.
The sculpture wears masks that change every two months, representing six different people over the course of the exhibition.
Mahnaz Akbari was born in Mashhad, Iran in 1985, to an Afghan refugee family, and lived in Kabul, Afghanistan from 2011 to 2021. Mahnaz was among the limited number of Afghan women who were evacuated in August 2021 after the withdrawal of the United States military from Afghanistan. Mahnaz, along with her two nieces she managed to evacuate with, are currently in the process of applying for asylum in the United States.
THE SCULPTURE
The work is a large scale bronze replica of the Statue of Liberty wearing various cartoonish masks. The masks are stylized portraits of individuals whose personal experiences of freedom are directly connected to the United States.
You know who I am is organized by Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art and Melanie Kress, High Line Art Associate Curator.
Paola Pivi’s interdisciplinary artistic practice combines the familiar with the bizarre. She is known for transposing live animals and common objects—ranging from helicopters to cappuccinos— to unexpected settings. Some of her best-known striking tableaux include Untitled (zebras), two zebras standing on a snowy mountain—shown on the High Line Billboard in 2012—as well as 84 goldfish flying coach, and a gallery filled with frolicking feathered polar bears in highlighter-bright hues. In all her work, Pivi uses strategies of displacement and overabundance to disorient and shift viewers’ expectations of rules, categories, and boundaries. Her parallel universes offer opportunities to shift points of view on divisions we take for granted.
Paola Pivi (b. 1971, Milan, Italy) lives and works in Anchorage, Alaska. Recent solo exhibitions have been featured at institutions including Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado (2021); Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, Denmark (2020); The Bass Museum, Miami Beach, Miami, Florida (2018); Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia (2018); La Rinascente, Milan, Italy (2017); Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, Texas (2016); FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France (2014); National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2014); Witte de With, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2013); and Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2012). Public solo commissions include High Line Art, New York, New York (2012) and Public Art Fund, New York, New York (2012). Notable group exhibitions include Io dico Io – I say I, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, Italy (2021); Trittico, Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy (2016); and Senso Unico, MoMA PS1, New York, New York (2007). Major international exhibitions include the Yokohama Triennial, Japan (2018) and the 48th Venice Biennale, Italy (1999).
