Rirkrit Tiravanija

Overview

Born in 1961, Buenos Aires
Lives and works in New York and Chiang Mai

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rirkrit Tiravanija studied at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto, the Banff Center School of Fine Arts, Canada, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York. He has exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide. Major solo retrospectives include: Tomorrow is the Question/Morgen is de vraag, Museumplein, Amsterdam (2016); YBCA, San Francisco (2015); Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas (2014); Park Avenue Armory, New York (2013); Bonnierskonsthall, Stockholm (2011); Kunsthalle Bielefield (2010); Museé de la Ville de Paris (2005); Museum Bojmans Van Beuningen (2004); Chiang Mai University Art Museum (2004); Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo (2002); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1999); and Museum of Modern Art, New York (1997).

 

He is known for a practice that traverses sculpture, film, installation, public and private performances, teaching, and forms of public service and social action. He has routinely overturned traditional exhibition formats to emphasize social interaction, through the sharing of everyday activities such as cooking, eating and reading. As platforms for these activities, he has designed architectural structures and interventions, presented both in gallery and public spaces. Tiravanija’s ability to create environments that reject the primacy of the art object, instead promoting the bringing of people together through simple acts of communal care and the challenging of expectations around labour and virtuosity, has resulted in his recognition as one of the most influential artists of his generation.