Paola Pivi: I Did It again

SCAD Museum of Art presents "I Did It Again," an exhibition of four re-configured installations by Italian multimedia artist Paola Pivi. The artist works in many international contexts and uses various media, including photography, video, sculpture and installation, often employing a playfulness in her practice to explore darker themes. Pivi’s work engages contemporary concerns and conditions, such as the environment and navigating the world in a post-truth context. For her exhibition, Pivi uses the language of window displays as public art by creating vignettes within the SCAD Museum of Art Jewel Boxes, a series of glass enclosures located along the historic museum’s northern façade.

"I Did It Again" features a series of Pivi’s polar bear figures — life-sized, unnaturally and brightly hued sculptures clad in feathers. The polar bear has become a symbol of the perils of climate change — emaciated creatures stranded on flotillas of ice due to the melting of the polar ice caps. As such, they are embedded with projected values, eliciting both empathy and end-of-world hysteria. Pivi’s bears are occupied with more mundane activities, such as dancing, relaxing with feet up behind a desk or climbing a wall. Their anthropomorphic qualities render them absurd, but also deepen their inherent pathos.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website