Anna Maria Maiolino

Verônica: When you took the first photograph on Cardoso Júnior Street, of Entrevidas – that was the first time I felt the urge to document something.

That day, you and Henri Virgil Stahl set up the scene with the eggs on the pavement, in front of where we lived and your studio.

I remember wanting to have a camera in my hands, because when I looked up, there were two Portuguese neighbours looking down from the window. It was so funny. They'd watch you arranging the eggs, Henri adjusting the camera, and they'd exchange glances with me, sharing their amusement.

They'd give me this look like, “What's going on here?” And I’d politely give them a little smile, shrug, and look at them as if to say, “Let's see what's going to happen.”

So there I was, those women watching all of this, and soon enough, you’d start walking between the eggs.

Entrevidas emerged in 1981, right at the political opening – the transition from dictatorship to democracy in Brazil. People were literally walking on eggshells. How did you bring people together at your place for the gatherings?

Anna: During the dictatorship, there was no art market, which made us freer and more honest. 

So bringing people together was easy. When your grandmother, Nonna, wasn't sending over lasagne for everyone, I’d make spaghetti. It was like “Hey Anna, throw some pasta together before we go.” It was that sense of freedom that came from not having money involved.

I chose to live with freedom, but not recklessness, because I never allowed anyone to smoke weed at my place. Actually, one night I kicked everyone out. They criticised me, saying, “Can you believe it?” and I said, “No, I have a teenage daughter. If they want to smoke, they can do it far from here. I'm not going to offer them the thrill of breaking the rules.” They were really upset when I sent everyone home.

Verônica: During that time, you were also part of ABAPP, Associação Brasileira de Artistas Plásticos Profissionais.

Anna: The association was important back then, because we would meet. 

Of course, the men called the shots, and the women were the chorus. When it came to the meeting minutes, since I didn't know how to write in Portuguese, I managed to avoid writing them because they always picked the women to do it. But I never minded that. Maybe it's because I came from a southern macho culture, where the first plate on the table always went to the man. 

Verônica: We lived on a very Portuguese street – those big Portuguese houses, women who wore headscarves, gold earrings, big hoops. You were the only divorced woman on the street. How did they treat you?

Anna: They weren’t my friends, but they'd greet me: “Good morning, good evening”. 

I didn't have a phone. The telephone was a real problem for many people in Brazil. So Luzia, the owner of the house, would lend me hers every now and then, she was the one who protected me. 

One day I told her, “Who knows what these women think of me – separated with two kids?” Because back then, in the ’70s, if you were separated, you were considered a whore. And she said, “No, your children are always the cleanest, well-dressed, well-fed. Nobody can say anything about you.” I realised she defended me to her friends. Nobody could come for me, because my kids were well taken care of.

Verônica: I keep thinking about how women are always so judged. You created this incredible piece of feminine logistics because you had the privacy to make your work, and at the same time, you could keep an eye on us playing outside. I loved visiting your studio. It was so tiny. To me, it felt like a little dollhouse.

I'd watch you working; I remember laughing, with my childish logic, that you were sewing paper, not fabric. To me, you went somewhere else, drifting away from reality – like when I played.

And there was the Moviola and the Super 8, a forbidden item for us.

Anna: I loved the Moviola. I love anything that's artisanal. I bought it with Maria do Carmo Secco. 

Verônica: And the Super 8, was it only yours?

Anna: The Super 8 camera was mine. I lent it to Maria do Carmo's husband. Tools should never be lent out. He ended up ruining the Super 8 my mother, Nonna, had bought me.

Verônica: You know what, I never asked you why you got into Super 8.

Anna: Critics always say that artists just want to follow trends. But it's not about being trendy. There are different ideas, and you want to experiment with a medium that expands what you can say.

Verônica: What was your first Super 8 piece?

Anna: In-Out Antropofagia. Because the power of art lies in the metaphors.

I wanted to talk about the dictatorship. The thread was a statement: I start with a black thread in the mouth, which I keep working with through metaphors.

The people from the dictatorship don’t understand metaphors. 

Verônica: I have a memory of the tape you used when you spliced the film. You wouldn't let me get near it.

Anna: I remember that. Developing was so expensive. The Super 8 film had to be sent to the United States. So I had to choose: either send the film to the States or buy the little present you kids needed to take to a friend's birthday.

Verônica: I always loved when you'd get us to participate in your work.

Anna: I did that a little, but not very often.

Verônica: Por um Fio (By a Thread), with Nonna, you and me, became an image that's been everywhere. I joke that it's your Mona Lisa. There are people with this work tattooed.

Anna: Regina Vater shot it; she captured the poetry of the moment.

Anna: I boiled the string, otherwise she wouldn't have put it in her mouth, no way.

Verônica: You'd tell her, “Mama, I'm going to put this thread coming out of your mouth.” Did she ask any questions? 

Anna: No, never. She just went along with it, because Italians always have art in them. I might be prejudiced saying that, but it's true. When you go to Italy and someone asks what you do, you say: “I'm an artist.” And they say, “Me too”.

Everyone is an artist.

Verônica: How did Por um Fio (By a Thread) come to life?

Anna: My work arises from the processes of everyday life, later from the technical process. I steal procedures and incorporate them, adding my own voice. There's a very subjective side to it, and my whole life has revolved around the mouth because I was born during the war.

In Scalea, where I was born, we didn't go hungry. My grandmother owned land that produced wheat, and the sea close by gave us fish. But when we moved to Bari in 1948, we really starved. We went hungry so my older siblings could study at university.

Nonna always wanted everyone seated at the dinner table before dividing the food. And because there were thirteen of us, she'd say: “Remember, two are missing. Blas and Maria still aren't here.” You couldn't have seconds. Many times I left the table still hungry. How do you divide one chicken among thirteen people?

Verônica: The other day, I remembered something you once said:

“I wanted to be everything.” You wanted to be a person, an artist, a woman, a mother…

Anna: I didn't pull it off. I wasn't a good wife. But then again, marriage is hard. I had prepared myself for it, but neither marriage worked out.

Verônica: But you tried, didn't you? You tried to be all those things.

Anna: I had to follow Nonna’s example.

Verônica: But you didn't have ten kids, Mum!

Anna: No. But Nonna would shout: “You, my children, are the blood of my blood, the body of my body.”

I never saw anyone being intimate in that house; I have no idea where my parents found the privacy. I used to think I was a little piece of my mother's body, because I didn't know how babies were born.

I think my segmented work comes from there – the line, the points. A line is made of points, extending to infinity. I think it was all a fantasy. Much of it came from my unconscious, mixed with intellect and the philosophy I was reading. 

I always believed in Spinoza – God and nature being the same. And southern Italy, where I'm from, with its ancestral memory, it’s a pantheistic culture.

Verônica: I always think of that scene you’ve described: you’re holding on to the bow of the ship, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, with the waves crashing violently. You were twelve years old.

Anna: It was horrible, because suddenly, you have to leave. 

I remember before we immigrated to Venezuela, the last country that would accept legal immigration, we went to Naples for the medical examination, which felt like a concentration camp. A horrible memory.

My mother, a wise and brave woman, went to the director in charge and said, “Either you treat everyone with respect, or I'll go to the press and cause a scandal.”

We left Italy having to wear a badge that said “immigrant” on our chest, which I never put on. When we disembarked in Venezuela, I was supposed to wear it, but I said I'd lost it when, in fact, it was in my pocket … Immigration was a burden

Verônica: Anyone who goes through immigration, or as a refugee, carries that as a mark.

And for me, when I started paying attention to your artworks, I could identify a sense of territory in many of them.

I’ve realised: your artwork became your territory. And today I'd even say it's become a kind of camp, because it gave you a place in the world, and that was something you were searching for.

Anna: Oh, I'm really glad you told me that.

ANNA—And the Infinite Line

A new documentary from The Forgotten HerStory, directed by Clara Peltier. It follows Maiolino through the installation of her solo exhibition at the Picasso Museum, in her studio, and within her domestic sphere — combined with a series of intimate conversations, in the project's signature style, and her own short films.

The film's release coincides with Hauser & Wirth's exhibition 'ANNA—And the Infinite Line,' on view at their New York, 18th Street location from September 10 through October 31, 2026, celebrating Maiolino's six-decade practice.