LE GRAND CAFÉ, Contemporary Art Centre - Paola Pivi - I wish I am fish - June 5th – August 30th, 2009
Paola Pivi is an Italian artist, born in 1971 and now living in Alaska. She established herself on the international art scene more than 10 years ago with a singular and formally unpredictable body of work. Whether through installations, photographs or performances (overturning an aeroplane, photographing zebras on the ice flots, releasing a leopard amid fake cups of cappuccino…), Paola Pivi creates unusual and ambivalent situations that disturb our habitual reference points for understanding what we see. Proceeding from visions that are then created 'for real', the artist constructs a universe in the form of a visual puzzle where the wild natural world frequently borders the artificial. A distinctive form of language emerges from the meeting of dream and reality, opening up a new field of possibilities for the spectator: an unusual, poetic and untamed space.
At Le Grand Café, Paola Pivi is showing several new works brought together around a film produced for the occasion: I wish I am fish. Which is concerned with making goldfish fly…
A great space with some really interesting works by Paola Pivi...
and a very friendly shop guy who gave us all a copy of her Evian water bottle. Which we were told was a very controversial piece of art and we shouldn't be seen with them, however they sat nicely on the parcel shelf of the car for the remainding few weeks of the trip.