PERTH.- The Art Gallery of Western Australia announces the exhibition Paola Pivi – I don’t like it, I love it by globally celebrated artist Paola Pivi. This expansive and vibrant exhibition marks one of the artist’s biggest and most ambitious projects in her almost 30-year career. The installation at AGWA features major commissions created especially for AGWA’s unique architectural spaces, as well as other new works and key selected works from across Pivi’s career.
Italian-born Paola Pivi (b.1971) is one of the world’s most recognisable and loved contemporary artists. Her practice playfully blurs the line between reality and fantasy, often incorporating animals and objects in surreal scenarios—multicoloured feathered polar bears in dynamic poses, zebras in arctic landscapes, or airplanes impossibly tipping and spinning in public plazas. Her works are joyful, disarming, and immediately accessible, yet also deeply thoughtful as they explore themes ranging from consumerism, sustainability, displacement, to the human condition.
As AGWA builds its role as a dynamic cultural beacon, Paola Pivi’s artistic vision offers the perfect moment to celebrate the importance and possibility of creativity and imaginative thinking. Pivi’s ability to unite spectacle with substance, humour with seriousness, and approachability with conceptual depth makes her work uniquely powerful and compelling. She cuts across demographics, engaging diverse audiences while opening space for contemplation and conversation, experience and wonder.
Her works encourage us to think about how we share space—with each other, with animals, and with the planet itself. They open a dialogue around cooperation, empathy, play, and possibility in a time of increasing global precarity.
“Pivi's art transforms our expectations of what an artwork can be. It’s delightful, thoughtful and deeply human. With this exhibition, we aim to offer Western Australians and visitors a rare opportunity to experience the full spectrum of her incredible imagination and insight,” said AGWA Director Colin Walker.
Paola Pivi – I don’t like it, I love it unveils major new commissions developed specifically for AGWA making it one of the largest projects Paola Pivi has ever undertaken. The new artworks include a giant inflatable comic cell that celebrates the power of human creativity paying homage to the comic form which played a vital role in Pivi’s journey from Chemical Engineering student to artist. The inflatable features a vignette by world acclaimed American cartoonist Lincoln Peirce, author of the renowned Big Nate.
Three new feathered polar bears have been created for the AGWA show. Pivi’s iconic bears symbolise a connection between humanity and the natural world and highlight the vulnerability polar bears face with climate change.
AGWA Curator Robert Cook said “The vibrantly coloured feathered bears have long been a popular favourite for art fans around the world who are entranced by their very special expressivity. As with much of her work though they equally speak to more serious concerns, about the fragility of the environment in this instance. Their cheerful beauty and tender poses become unexpectedly heart-wrenching when we consider the endangered status of these arctic giants.”
A third work fills AGWA’s Rooftop Gallery with 1000 suspended trays of colourful liquid, bringing together minimalist modernism, evocations of the beauty of stained glass and the entangled connections between the sky, light and the gallery building.
The exhibition also presents iconic works from across Pivi’s career, including large scale wall paintings, photographs, and a hanging sculptural installation. Together, these works offer a once-in-a-lifetime experience that reimagines the possibilities of art in public space.
AGWA Curator Robert Cook explained: “Paola Pivi – I don’t like it, I love it” balances fun and depth, the familiar and the unknown—inviting audiences into an extraordinary world that opens their minds, hearts, and imaginations."
The commissioned works are expected to resonate internationally, enhancing AGWA’s profile on the global art stage and creating new icons of Paola Pivi’s ever-evolving practice.
Pivi has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including A helicopter upside down, San Carlo Cremona, Italy (2025); Come check it out, Contemporary Calgary, Canada (2024); It's not my job, it's your job, Musée d'art contemporain, Marseille, France (2023); I Want It All, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2022); You know who I am, High Line Art, New York (2022); Bear like me, Aspen Art Museum, Colorado (2021); Lies, Lies, Lies, Anchorage Museum, Alaska (2021); 25,000 Covid Jokes (It's not a joke), La Vieille Charité, Marseilles, France (2021); We are the Alaskan Tourists, Arken Museum, Denmark (2020); Art with a view, The Bass Museum, Miami Beach, Florida (2018); I did it again, Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia (2018); I am tired of eating fish, LaRinascente, Milan, Italy (2017); Ma’am, Dallas Contemporary, Texas (2016); Tulkus 1880 to 2018, FRAC Bourgogne, France (2014); You started it…I finish it, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia (2014); Tulkus 1880 to 2018, Witte de With, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2013); Share, But It’s Not Fair, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2012); How I Roll, Public Art Fund, New York (2012); It’s a cocktail party, Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany (2008); and It just keeps getting better, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2007). Pivi has exhibited internationally at institutions including Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom; Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, Germany; Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom; Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Italy; Malmö Konsthall, Sweden; MOMA PS1, USA; Yokohama Triennial, Japan; and the XLVIII Biennale di Venezia, Italy. The artist lives and works in the Island of Hawai'i, Hawai'i.
