Rirkrit Tiravanija

Rirkrit Tiravanija was born in Buenos Aires in 1961 and grew up between Thailand, Ethiopia and Canada. Between 1980 and 1986 he studied at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, the Banff Center School of Fine Arts, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Independent Studies Program in New York. He currently lives and works between New York, Berlin and Chiang Mai. Since the 1990s, his artistic practice has been in line with social and ethical concerns, and more than in the production of objects, his work focuses on social and cultural interactions - his works often invite the public to intervene, and he is considered one of the pioneers of the Relational Aesthetics movement. Tiravanija creates alternative spaces and contexts to accommodate everyday activities, while blurring the boundaries between art and life. An emblematic example is the Pad Thai exhibition (1990) where he revolutionises the concept of artwork and invites visitors to the exhibition to eat the traditional South East Asian dish prepared by the artist, at the Paula Allen Gallery, New York. Since 1998, The Land is an ongoing collaborative artistic, architectural and environmental project in Sanpatong, Thailand, where residents and artists use the land as a laboratory for ecological experimentation. Throughout his prolific and unique career, he has collaborated with several artists, including Pierre Huyghe, Liam Gillick and Philippe Parreno. 

Monographic exhibitions have been dedicated to him by institutions such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (1994); Museum of Modern Art in New York (1997); Philadelphia Museum of Art (1998); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1999); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam (2004); Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2005). He also participated in the biennials of Venice (1993, 1999), Whitney (1995, 2005), Liverpool (2002, 2004), and São Paulo (2006). His work has been recognized and awarded prizes and scholarships, including: Gordon Matta Clark Foundation Award; National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship (1994); Lucelia Artist Award by the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2003); and Hugo Boss Prize by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2004).. 

He is represented in numerous private and institutional collections all around the world.

CB, novembro 2020