Anna Maria Maiolino’s life and work has been shaped by migration and resistance. In 1954, she fled Italy with her parents, leaving behind a country torn apart by fascism and the ramifications of the Second World War. The family first settled in Venezuela, before moving to Rio de Janeiro in 1960. It was there that Maiolino  started working as an artist, facing the military dictatorship that took hold of Brazil (1964–85). She participated in Brazil’s contemporary art movements, such as New Figuration, creating a poetic language that bypassed military censorship, offering a means of resistance. This engagement is palpable in works such as O Herói (1966), an ironic painting questioning male military authority, or her series Fotopoemação (1970–) in which her body acts as an allegory for the social body. In the photograph É o que sobra (1974), presented in Global Fascisms, the artist appears to cut off her nose and tongue, reflecting on the violence against the female body, while also addressing the issue of (self)censorship, which continues to affect democratic life across generations as authoritarianism continues to spread around the world.

WORK IN THE EXHIBITION: É o que sobra (What is Left Over), from the series Fotopoemação (Photopoemaction, 1974, printed 2009), b&w digital print, 58.8 × 148 cm (61 × 151.8 × 5.2 cm framed). Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth