Paola Pivi: “We are the baby gang”

Work and life have been consuming lately, so I haven't gotten out to as many exhibitions as I would like. But I did make it to Paola Pivi’s “We are the baby gang” at Gallerie Perrotin on the Lower East Side, and it was worth every minute.

What made this exhibition stand out was its sheer versatility. Five or fifty-five, it did not matter. This was a visual treat for anyone who walked through the door.

The show featured 75 handmade feathered bears, each one a reflection of Pivi’s personal life and experiences. The radiant, almost electric color palette draws directly from her time in India, a place she holds close, where she was immersed in a culture as vivid and alive as the bears themselves. The choice of polar bears feels like its own quiet nod to her years living in Alaska, a contrast made more striking by the gallery's stark white walls and generous negative space.

One of nature's most ferocious creatures, yet Pivi presents the bears in an entirely childlike, playful manner: hugging, practicing yoga, rolling around. This reflects her experience as a new mother, a period where the world around her became softer, smaller, and more delicate. Each bear is given a self-aware name like "Here Comes My Mom" or "I Can't Wait to Grow Up," a reminder that even the fiercest creatures need protection and love.

The interconnectedness amongst living things has always been a thread running through Pivi's work, and it is very much alive here. Justine Ludwig's press release captures it beautifully: seventy baby polar bears frolicking, playing, fighting, napping, and exploring, their fur replaced by fluorescent feathers as an act of adaptation to a melting, changing world. They occupy a space between fantasy and reality, frozen in their stances yet feeling as though they could spring to life at any moment.

I loved that description and felt it deserved to be shared in full.