Anna Maria Maiolino is a multidisciplinary artist who works across visual, textual, and performative languages, exploring political, everyday life, and women’s issues in contemporary society. Born in Scalea, Italy, Anna Maria Maiolino moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1960, where she began studying printmaking at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes. During this period, she was already producing multiple objects but worked primarily with woodcut printing. Maiolino became close to artists such as Antonio Dias and Rubens Gerchman, key figures of Brazilian Nova Figuração, with whom she participated in the historic exhibition Nova Objetividade Brasileira at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro (1967). 

From 1968 to 1971, Maiolino lived in the United States, where she devoted herself to drawing, inspired by the experimental poetry of the 1960s. Upon returning to Brazil, she began exploring alternative mediums and materials, experimenting with film, installation, and performance. In another stylistic shift, from the 1980s onward, she turned to painting and sculpture in clay, pushing the limits of the material. 

Still active, Maiolino is internationally recognized, and has been the subject of retrospective shows at institutions such as Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina (2021); Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2019); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA (2017); and Fundació Antoní Tàpies, Barcelona, Spain (2010), among others. She has participated in important group shows such as Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution (2010), at MoCA, Los Angeles; and Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960-1985, at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Brooklyn Museum, New York (2017); and Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2018). She has participated in several biennials, such as the Bienal de São Paulo (1967, 1973, 1981, 1991, 1998, 2010); Biennale of Sydney (2008); Biennale de Lyon (2017); Gwangju Biennale (2014); Bienal de la Havana (1984); as well as Documenta 13, Kassel (2012). Recently, Maiolino was awarded the Golden Lion for her career at the Venice Biennale (2024).  

Her work is part of institutional collections such as MAM São Paulo, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, MAC USP, MAM Rio, Brazil; Centre Pompidou, France; Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, USA; Galeria Nazionale di Arte Moderna, Italy, MALBA, Argentina; Museo Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Spain; MoMA, USA; Tate Modern, UK; among others.