Janine Antoni

Janine Antoni, a Bahamian-born American artist working in performance art, sculpture, and photography, creates thought-provoking contemporary works.

Biography of Janine Antoni

Janine Antoni was born in 1964 in Freeport, Bahamas. In 1977, she relocated to Florida to attend boarding school. She earned her B.A. degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1986 and completed her M.F.A. in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1989. Despite her education in the United States, her upbringing in the Bahamas profoundly influenced her work.

Antoni has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Irish Museum of Modern Art/Glen Dimplex Artist Award in 1996,  the Joan Mitchell Painting and Sculpture Award in 1998, the New Media Award at ICA Boston in 1999, the Larry Aldrich Foundation Award in 1999, The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2011, a Creative Capital Artist Grant in 2012, and an Anonymous Was A Woman Grant in 2014.

Since 2000, she has been teaching fine art in a graduate course titled "Master Class/Mentor Groups" at Columbia University, School of the Arts.

Her recent solo exhibitions include "In my holding" at Rossi & Rossi in Hong Kong (2024), "Janine Antoni: here-ing" at KU Field Station, Spencer Museum of Art and Kansas Biological Survey and Center for Ecological Research in Lawrence (2020-2023), "Janine Antoni and Stephen Petronio: Honey Baby" at  Locust Projects in Miami (2020-2021), and many more.

Additionally, Antoni's works have been featured in numerous group shows held at various galleries and museums worldwide, including Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Hayward Gallery in London, Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo, Galerie Kandlhofer in Vienna, Palazzo Reale in Milan, High Line Nine in New York, Luhring Augustine in New York, Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles, among other esteemed venues.

Currently, the artist lives and works in New York, USA. 

Janine Antoni's Art Style

Antoni is celebrated for her unconventional methods, employing her body both as a tool and as a vehicle for meaning within her conceptual art practice. Initially, Antoni explored unique materials such as chocolate and soap, transforming them through everyday rituals like bathing, eating, and sleeping to create sculptures and installations. Through her body of work, Antoni eloquently expresses her connection to the world, evoking emotional states that resonate through the senses. 

Her artistic focus lies in exploring processes and the transitions between creation and completion, often reflecting feminist ideals. She prominently features the human body in her artworks, utilizing elements like the mouth, hair, eyelashes, and, through technological scanning, the brain, either as tools of creation or as subjects themselves. Her work delves into themes of intimacy between the viewer and the artist, blurring the boundaries between performance art and sculpture.

Antoni has acknowledged Louise Bourgeois as a significant artistic influence, often describing Bourgeois as her 'art mother.' Robert Smithson also played a pivotal role in shaping Antoni's art.