Paola Pivi won the Leone D’oro at the Venice Biennale in 1999 for the best national pavilion, along with five other artists. She was part of the Venice Biennale (1999, 2003), Manifesta (2004, 2014), Berlin Biennale (2008), Echigo Tsumari Triennale (2015), and Yokohama (2017).
She made public artworks for the Public Art Fund and the High Line in New York in 2012 and 2022, and for Sculpture International Rotterdam in 2010.
Pivi has had solo shows in international institutions such as: Fondazione Trussardi, Milan (2006); Kunsthalle Basel (2007); Tate Modern, London (2009); Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2012), Castello di Rivoli (2012), FRAC Bourgogne, Francia (2014), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2014), Dallas Contemporary (2016), The Bass Museum, Miami Beach (2018), MAXXI, Roma (2019), Arken Museum, Denmark (2020), The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (2022), [mac] musée d’art contemporain, Marseille (2023).