Janine Antoni ’86 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, the Kwangju Biennial, the Prospect.1 Biennial in New Orleans and the SITE Santa Fe 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; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm; Sammlung Goetz, Munic; AstruoFearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo; and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Antoni is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Irish Museum of Modern Art/Glen Dimplex Artist Award in 1996, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship in 1998, the Joan Mitchell Painting and Sculpture Award in 1998, the New Media Award ICA Boston, the Larry Aldrich Foundation Fellowship in 2011, The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2011, a 2012 Creative Capital Artist Grant, and Anonymous Was A Woman Grant in 2014. In 2016, Antoni collaborated with Anna Halprin and Stephen Petronio on Ally, an exhibition presented by The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, with major support from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Antoni currently resides in New York and is represented by Luhring Augustine, NY, and Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco.