Podcast: Artist Janine Antoni
Posted by: Roy Wilbur
Janine Antoni is a visual artist who was born in Freeport, Bahamas in 1964. She received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is known for her unusual processes. Her body is both her tool for making and the source from which her meaning arises. Antoni’s early work transformed materials like chocolate and soap, and used everyday activities like bathing, eating, and sleeping as sculptural processes. She carefully articulates her relationship to the world, giving rise to emotional states that are felt in and through the senses. In each piece, no matter the medium or image, a conveyed physicality speaks directly to the viewer’s body.
Her work shows nationally and internationally. Antoni has exhibited at numerous major institutions including documenta14, at the Fridericianum, Kassel, the Venice Beinnale, the Whitney Biennial, the Johannesburg Biennial, the Istanbul Biennial, and the Kwangju Biennial. Her work is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Sammlung Goetz, Munic; and AstruoFearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo. Presently showing at The Met Breuer and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Antoni is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship in 1998, The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2011, and a 2012 Creative Capital Artist Grant.
Antoni currently resides in New York and is represented by Luhring Augustine, NY, and Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco.