‘I know that art can change the world’: paola pivi on freedom, joy, and her AGWA exhibition

AGWA hosts paola pivi’s most expansive presentation yet

Paola Pivi’s exhibition I don’t like it, I love it at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) brings together one of the most ambitious bodies of work in her thirty-year practice, pairing long-imagined pieces with major new commissions that inhabit the Brutalist architecture of the museum at full scale. Conceived through extended dialogue with AGWA’s curatorial team, the show pushes, as Pivi says, ‘the entire boundary,’ expanding her ongoing investigation of joy, urgency, and the evolving conditions of freedom today. ‘I am one of the luckiest human beings and artists, given the chance to be able to freely express myself,’ she tells us, ‘something that today we are losing at a perceivable speed.’

Across the exhibition, on view until April 26th 2026, Pivi’s signature balancing of the playful and the existential becomes a framework for rethinking how we inhabit the world. Her fluorescent feathered polar bears, joyful in movement yet tied to global warming, which she insists on calling ‘global warming rather than climate change’, emerge from what she describes as ‘respect for life’ and ‘treasuring movement and the joy to be here.’ Her approach dissolves the distinction between delight and responsibility. ‘For me, joy comes from caring about life. It’s all connected. There is no separation,’ she notes. This belief that art expands perception underpins her entire practice. ‘I know that art can change the world because art can change.’ Below, designboom speaks with Paola Pivi about the making of I don’t like it, I love it, the importance of freedom, and why the ‘impossible’ is often just the beginning.

Installation view at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), Perth, 2025 — Love addict (2025) by Paola Pivi, composed of 999 molded resin trays filled with glycerine and food colouring; dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. © Paola Pivi | image © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio

in ‘I don’t like it, I love it’ scale, light and play collide

The largest of these new pieces is a giant inflatable comic strip cell suspended in the towering lobby of the museum. Drawn from an early Big Nate vignette by Lincoln Peirce, the piece transforms line and paper into volume and air, opening a dialogue about the power of images to catalyze imagination. For Pivi, the cell encapsulates the generative spark that travels between artist, artwork, and viewer. ‘All that energy that is stored in this little cell… exploded in his Big Nate work worldwide, and it also inspired me,’ the multimedia artist shares with designboom. ‘That speaks about the power of aesthetics, the power of art.’

This sense of stored energy appears again in the second new work, a suspended field of 1,000 transparent trays filled with colored liquids on AGWA’s rooftop level. The installation responds directly to the intense natural light entering the building and to Pivi’s experience living in Hawai‘i.‘It all came together while I was living there, with the colors and the light — the life of the planet,’ she comments. For her, the opportunity to realize these long-held visions speaks to a broader principle: ‘The more we are given chances to express ourselves without limitation, the more the world can go forward.’

The exhibition also showcases her iconic feathered polar bears, which emerged when she moved to Alaska in 2006. For Pivi, their joy and their urgency are inseparable. ‘For me, joy comes from caring about life. It’s all connected.’ Her bears, playful in posture yet tied to the realities of global warming, exemplify the tension that runs through her work: a belief that art can open space for empathy, imagination, and possibility without prescribing what viewers should think. ‘I’m not going to tell people what they need to think… I want people to tell me what they think. I hope people will be better than me and teach me.’ Scroll on for the full interview with Paola Pivi.

in conversation with paola pivi

designboom (DB): This exhibition at AGWA is one of your largest projects so far. When you first walked into the building, what did you see or feel that shaped the works you created for this space?

Paola Pivi (PP): Oh well, I created the show, or actually a different version of the show that then changed along the way, well before seeing the space, this extraordinary piece of architecture. The amount of space is an important feature of τthat building. It’s really dynamic and generous with the amount of space. In certain galleries, definitely in this museum, we do not feel constricted because we have different areas with different lighting. It all feels very varied and very complex and dynamic, and it’s like there is movement in the art itself. I designed the show with the curator Robert Cook well before entering the space, just by conversations for a long time. Basically, Robert, the curator, and the director Colin were ready to engage with me, the artist, to do the most ambitious show we could do, not only in terms of size of the installation or the scope of the production, but also in the decision of which artworks to present to the world today, to bring forward the dialogue of art. To really try our best as a team, from every point of view, to do a show that would push the entire boundary.

DB: One of the new commissions is a giant inflatable comic cell, inspired by your own journey from studying chemical engineering to becoming an artist. Why was it important for you to bring comics into this show, and how do you see them connected to creativity and freedom?

PP: Two of the artworks are two dreams come true for me. They are artworks that I have been working on and hoping to make for years, and now AGWA is commissioning these works and giving me a chance to see them in reality. They are extremely important for me, and I am one of the luckiest human beings and artists, given the chance to be able to freely express myself, something that today we are slowly losing. Not slowly, actually, we are losing it at a perceivable speed. So in this instance, I’m given the freedom and the chance to express myself, and these two artworks are a form of expression for me. One is a cell of comic strips, one cell basically enlarged and created as an inflatable. The black line of the marker on paper, which then becomes a black line printed on the paper of magazines of the comic strips, becomes black inflatable material, and the white of the paper becomes empty space. And so this enormous cell or vignette will be hung in the middle of the museum’s towering lobby, a space with balconies and a large spiral staircase that goes up, filled with sunlight entering through windows. I expect it to be a very impressive installation.

The cell comes from comic strip artist Lincoln Peirce. It was one of the four cells, the last of the four cells, of the first story that Lincoln published many years ago. And it was the first time he published the character Big Nate, who then went on to become a very famous book character. I did not choose the cell because I knew it was Big Nate. I chose the cell just by random searches on the internet, and I found it so meaningful. Then I realized that it belonged to Lincoln Peirce and that it was the seminal work of that very prolific body of work. All that energy that is stored in this little cell not only exploded in his Big Nate work worldwide, the number of children who read it is probably immense, but it also inspired me to use it for this installation. That speaks about the power of aesthetics or the power of art, this energy that is stored in these things that artists make. The second work is an installation of transparent hanging trays filled with colorful liquids of many colors. This installation, which is all suspended, is hung on the top floor of the museum, which is a room that has two walls basically made of glass, with very large windows opening onto the roof terrace. So it will interact with light, and this is also onto the void of the lobby.

DB: Why would you say that this second work is important to you?

PP: I had this vision of the work some time ago, and then it completely solidified in my head when I moved to Hawaii, with the colors and the light. And when I speak about the colors and light of Hawaii, I mean the life of the planet. It all came together while I was living there, and now I’m allowed to try to do it, which is extraordinary for me. But it’s not about me. It’s about me and every other artist on this earth. The more we are given chances to express ourselves without limitation, the more the world can go forward. Whether it’s me or another artist, I wish this for all of us. I wish for every human being to maintain freedom of expression, because these days it’s completely at risk.

Installation view at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), Perth, 2025 — Paola Pivi: Art Hunter (2025), polyurethane foam, plastic, trapeze, and feathers, 210 × 148 × 94 cm; This is my life (2025), polyurethane foam, plastic, feathers, and metal base, 270 × 138 × 97 cm; Art makes you high (2025), polyurethane foam, plastic, and feathers, 189 × 265 × 145 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. © Paola Pivi | image © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio.

DB: Your art, while joyful and playful, also deals with big issues like climate change and coexistence. How do you hold those two things together without losing the joy or the urgency?

PP: For me, joy comes from caring about life. It’s all connected. There is no separation. If I have fun at a party, it’s because I feel connected to the people I’m with. There cannot be one without the other. We are not compartmental, it’s all connected. My polar bear sculptures, when I moved to Alaska in 2006, they came into my work out of respect for life, out of treasuring life and movement and the joy to be here. Then global warming, I prefer to call it global warming rather than climate change, became an issue we acknowledged a little bit later. In those years it was still on the fringes.

Once my sculptures began to represent polar bears, and polar bears embodied the representatives of global warming because many of them were suffering visibly, then suddenly my art also became a vehicle for this message. I find it appropriate, and I welcome this, because the entire artwork originated from admiration and respect for life. I just welcome this. I let it do what it wants to do. I’m not going to tell people what they need to think when they see my art. I want people to tell me what they think, because I’m interested in what people think. I hope people will be better than me, think better than me, and teach me.

Paola Pivi, I am a new art (2023), urethane foam, plastic, and feathers, 172 × 202 × 85 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. © Paola Pivi | image © Hugo Glendinning

DB: Have you noticed any difference in how children versus adults experience your pieces?

PP: In contemporary art, the children’s audience is kind of rare. It’s a fact. So it’s not like I have hundreds of experiences with children. Those few times when I see children in my art, they usually like it. But it’s for all ages.

Paola Pivi, exhibition view of It’s not my job, it’s your job (2023) at [mac] musée d’art contemporain de Marseille; urethane foam, plastic, and feathers, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. © Paola Pivi. | image © Hugo Glendinning

DB: Many of your works feel like impossible scenes—zebras in the Arctic, planes turning in the sky. What draws you to the impossible, and what do you hope it opens up for the audience?

PP: For the audience, I hope for freedom of thought, freedom of expression deriving from that. Why do I seek the impossible? I just try to do art, with a capital A. Certain things seem impossible, but then they’re possible because I did them. So they were not impossible to start with. We definitely shouldn’t put limits on what we can hope and achieve. And this shouldn’t be interpreted only in the Western way of conquering, but also in every possible direction — hopefully resetting some kind of balance in the world and rights for human beings.

Installation view at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), Perth, 2025 — Paola Pivi, Fortunately, one picture is worth a thousand of these suckers… (homage to Lincoln Peirce) (2025), nylon, polyurethane, metal, and blowers, 1400 × 700 × 20 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. Created with the express permission of Lincoln Peirce; the original comic strip was published on 7 January 1991. © Paola Pivi. | image © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio

DB: Looking back across almost 30 years of making art, what feels like the thread

that connects everything you’ve done?

PP: You see, I never stopped, and I don’t want to stop thinking about that. My research is pure, and to maintain it pure, I’m doing my research. I’m not evaluating my research.

DB: If art has the power to change how we imagine the world, what do you hope your work invites people to imagine, especially now in such an uncertain time?

PP: It’s the same answer I always gave for all 30 years. I know that art can change the world because art can change. That doesn’t happen every single time, of course, as there are thousands and thousands of artworks. But among those thousands, there is always one that, when we encounter it, instantly changes the way we think, the way we perceive the world, the capacity of perception, of elaboration, of producing thought, of producing a different way of living. So the potential is there as a fact. Everybody who loves art knows this is possible, and it does happen here and there. I hope my art does that to certain people and inspire them to become more amazing human beings in the sense that they can engage with life on the planet in a more sophisticated way. That is exciting for me to be surrounded by somebody who might have extra mental powers. I know for a fact, because people have told me, that my art has influenced some individuals to become a better version of themselves. Engaging in this operation hopefully affects me and makes me progress.

Paola Pivi, Untitled (donkey) (2003), framed photographic print, 180 × 224 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. © Paola Pivi. | image © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio

DB: Your projects often involve collaboration, whether with craftspeople, technicians, or even cartoonists in this show. How do you work with others to keep your vision alive while also letting it evolve through collaboration?

PP: I work with others when the final result is better with others, when the artwork requires it. What is at stake, what is the goal, is to make an artwork. For example, when I did 25,000 COVID Jokes Is Not a Joke, I collected 25,000 COVID jokes from 60 places in the world, so that I had a multitude of cultures and languages from all over the world. I basically collaborated with 25,000 people. And it was essential to create that artwork.

Installation view at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), Perth, 2025 — Paola Pivi, Untitled (donkey) (2003), framed photographic print, 340 × 423 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. © Paola Pivi. | image © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio

DB: The title of the show is playful yet emphatic. Is there a story behind it?

PP: The title is created by Karma Culture Brothers, my beloved husband. He’s a songwriter and composer, and words come out of his mouth in a very powerful way. I am happy to be able to grab titles from him and position these little, well, I cannot say poems, but they are like little artworks made with a few words, that sit onto my show or my art and have this very strong communication quality to set the tone to a place where we can listen to each other.

Paola Pivi Share, but it’s not fair 2012 cotton fabric and polyester filling variable dimensions Installation view, “Share, But It’s Not Fair” at Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, 2012 Courtesy the Artist and Perrotin © Paola Pivi | image by Thomas Fuesser

Installation view at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), Perth, 2025 — Paola Pivi, Share, but it’s not fair (2012–2025), viscose and polyester fabric with polyester filling, dimensions variable; Free Humans (2008), acrylic wall painting, 179 × 2133 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. Sentence by Karma Culture Brothers. © Paola Pivi. | image © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio

project info:

name: Paola Pivi – I don’t like it, I love it

artist: Paola Pivi | @paolapivi

location: Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) | @artgallerywa, Perth

dates: 8th November 2025 – 26th April 2026

curator: Robert Cook

director: Colin Walker

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