Paola Pivi’s first museum solo exhibition in the United States addresses the viewer as “ma’am.” Women, men, and children are greeted with this term of reverence and kindness along with its common, unintentional undertones of comedy and pretension. Ma’am brings together iconic past works with new commissions. Pivi’s feather-covered polar bears occupy the gallery in the company of an inverted Fiat G-91 fighter jet. Canvases of cascading real pearls converse with photographs of zebras on a snowy mountaintop. Spinning, feather-dressed wheels evoke dream catchers, while a giant inflatable ladder elicts wonder and aspiration. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
