The work of Anna Maria Maiolino, one of the foremost contemporary artists in activity, spans diverse media seeking to explore multiple possibilities of expression. Spanning painting, sculpture, performance, installation, printmaking, and drawing, it speculates densely on themes such as identity, language, and the body. Throughout her career, the artist develops an approach that combines the personal and the political, the intimate and the collective, creating contexts that, even open to interpretation, are imbued with a sensitive and evocative charge.
Of Italian origin, Anna Maria Maiolino moved to Caracas, Venezuela, where she studied at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Cristóbal Rojas between 1958 and 1960. Already in Brazil, in 1961, she attended the woodcut course at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes, in Rio de Janeiro. Between 1968 and 1971, she studied at the International Pratt Graphic Center in New York, USA. In the shadow of the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship, Maiolino's experiments in the 1960s connected her to determining movements in the history of Brazilian art, such as the so-called Nova Figuração and Nova Objetividade, important moments of inflection in the Brazilian art system. From the 1980s onwards, she began her research with materiality and gesturality, which has been developed in a continuous and interconnected experimental process.
In 2024, Maiolino was awarded the Golden Lion for her body of work, and participated in the 60th Venice Biennale. Among her recent solo exhibitions are: Je suis là. Estou aqui, Musée Picasso-Paris (2025); Psssiiiuuu…, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, and Fundación Malba, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2022); In the sky I am one and many and as a human I am everything and nothing, Kunsthaus Baselland, Muttenz, Switzerland (2021); By a Thread, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, USA (2020); IN ALL - WHOLE, Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2019); Love becomes revolutionary, PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy, and Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2019); Poetic Wandering, Hauser & Wirth, New York, USA (2018); Anna Maria Maiolino, MoCA, Los Angeles, USA (2017); Point to Point, Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2014); Anna Maria Maiolino. Matrix 252, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive - University of California, Berkeley, USA (2014); Affections: MASP Mercedes-Benz Prize, MASP, São Paulo (2012); Anna Maria Maiolino, Fundação Antoní Tàpies, Barcelona, Spain, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and Malmö Kunsthalle, Sweden (2010-2011); among others.
She has participated in relevant national and international exhibitions, such as: Latin American Art from the Cisneros Gift in Dialogue, MoMA, New York, USA (2023); Scale: Sculpture 1945-2000, Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain (2023); Together. Interact, Interplay, Interfere, Kunst Meran, Merano, Italy (2022); This Must Be the Place, Americas Society, New York, USA (2021); The Lyric Machine, Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2021); Highlight, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro - MAM Rio (2020); Senzamargine. Passages in Italian Art at the Turn of the Millennium, MAXXI - Museo Nazionale Delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Rome, Italy (2020); The years we lived in danger, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo – MAM-SP (2019); Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA, and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA (2017-2018); 14th Lyon Biennale: Floating Worlds, France (2017); Art and Space, Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain (2017); Histories of Childhood, MASP, São Paulo (2016); The EY Exhibition. The World Goes Pop, Tate Modern, London, UK (2015); 20th Milan Triennial: Art & Food. Rituals since 1851, Italy (2015); 10th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2014); 30x São Paulo Biennale, São Paulo Biennale Foundation (2013); documenta 13: Here & There, Kassel, Germany (2012); 29th São Paulo Biennale: There is always a sea for a man to sail (2010); among others.
Appointed Honorary Doctor in 2022 by the University of the Arts London, UK, Maiolino has been awarded several prizes throughout her career, such as Clarival do Prado Valladares Prize (Artist for trajectory), ABCA – Associação Brasileira de Críticos de Arte (2018); MASP Mercedes-Benz Prize (2012); APCA – Associação Paulista de Críticos de Artes Prize (1994); among others. Her work is part of important collections around the world, among which stand out MoMA, New York, USA; Tate Modern; London, UK; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; MoCA, Los Angeles, USA; MASP, São Paulo; Fundación Malba, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Pinacoteca de São Paulo; and Galleria Nazionale di Roma, Italy.