A Practice for Everyday Life

Anna Maria Maiolino practices within a wide range of disciplines and media, from drawing and printmaking to poetry, film, performance and sculpture. Her work explores notions of subjectivity, belonging and the self, through processes that are both creative and destructive, revealing layers, marks, voids and threads.

This book was published to accompany Maiolino’s first UK retrospective, held at the Whitechapel Gallery in autumn 2019, and draws together a large body of work spanning more than three decades. This is presented chronologically, with thematic essays interspersed on grey paper sections throughout. The largely monochromatic nature of Maiolino’s work is reflected through the paper choices and use of greyscale reproduction within certain sections. Sewing and threads are emblematic within many of her works, and play a role within the book through an exposed binding, which reveals the pattern and cross-section of the threads on the spine.