Spring/Summer 2026 Exhibitions at PHI

Starting April 23, two new exhibitions to discover this spring at PHI: Jakob Kudsk Steensen and Paola Pivi

This spring, PHI presents Otherworlds by Jakob Kudsk Steensen and Come check it out. Lies lies lies by Paola Pivi, two speculative exhibitions that explore the possibilities and potentialities of what constitutes our reality.

Paola Pivi, Milk shake move, 2024; They call me Polar Bear, 2024. Photos: Guillaume Ziccarelli. Courtesy the artist and Perrotin. Paola Pivi, Twice in a week, 2021. Photo: Jason Mandella. Courtesy the artist and Perrotin.

Paola Pivi: Come check it out. Lies lies lies

April 23 – September 13, 2026
Public Opening: April 22, 2025, 5:30pm – 8pm
PHI, 407 Saint-Pierre Street, Montréal

Born in Milan and currently residing in Toronto, Paola Pivi subverts the familiar and ordinary in ways that expand our relationship with the built environment. Her work is born from deep observations and imaginings, unravelling worlds that seem curious and magical but that are rooted in the realities of our time.

Come check it out. Lies lies lies marks Paola Pivi’s first major touring exhibition in Canada. The exhibition features sculptural installations that question the authenticity of iconic symbols, such as the Statue of Liberty and the polar bear, which have come to stand in for ideas of freedom and climate change. Central to the exhibition is an immersive work titled Lies (2018), which asks viewers to consider the unstable terrain of truth and falsehood, real and fabricated news.

Staged as theatrical assemblages, Pivi’s works invite us to reflect on our choices and the inherent responsibility they carry. Her work seeks the truthful and factual in ways that peel back layers of misinformation and stereotypes, but with a sense of irony and playfulness that allows for wider engagement and deeper introspection. Come check it out. Lies lies lies is the artist’s first major exhibition in Québec.

Exhibition Curator: Kanika Anand, Contemporary Calgary

The exhibition is presented at 407 Saint-Pierre Street.

The original exhibition is organized by Contemporary Calgary, curated by Kanika Anand and developed for the PHI in dialogue with the artist and the PHI team.

About Paola Pivi

Paola Pivi won the Golden Lion 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).

Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Psychosphere (detail), 2025. Moving image, spatialised sound, interactive glass, fiberglass, and resin sculptures. Commissioned by Cisternerne, The Frederiksberg Museums, Denmark. Foundational research supported by the Gaia Art Foundation. © Jakob Kudsk Steensen, 2025.

Jakob Kudsk Steensen: Otherworlds

April 23 – September 13, 2026
Public Opening: April 22, 2025, 5:30pm – 8pm
PHI, 451 & 465 Saint-Jean Street, Montréal

PHI presents Otherworlds by Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen, whose multidisciplinary practice develops speculative worlds in which ecological observation and imaginative retelling unfold together, transform our bodies and reshape our collective unconscious.

For Otherworlds, Steensen proposes a new modality of his field research: for the first time this Montréal presentation invites audiences to delve into a collective survey of works from the artist, Visitors encounter these worlds as chapters within a larger narrative: virtual reality experiences, spatialized sound environments and immersive video installations become corners of a large world or map; fragments of a dream, cadences of a musical piece, stanzas of a poem, levels of an unfolding video game.

Otherworlds is Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s first solo exhibition in Canada, and marks the largest institutional presentation of his work to date. It includes the North American premiere of his large-scale installation Psychosphere (2025).

Exhibition Curator: Daniel Fiset

The exhibition is presented at 451 & 465 Saint-Jean Street.

About Jakob Kudsk Steensen

Jakob Kudsk Steensen (b. 1987, Denmark) is an artist working with virtual world-building, video game technologies, and spatial sound to produce large-scale installations. His practice draws on fieldwork that uses photogrammetry and other forms of recording to digitally archive vanishing and emerging ecologies. Developed in close collaboration with environmental scientists, composers, and philosophers, this process gives rise to speculative worlds in which technology, psyche, and body converge as new forms of environmental storytelling. His key collaborators include environmental philosopher Melanie Challenger; musician Arca; performer and vocalist Lyra Pramuk; experimental cellist Okkyung Lee; composer and Musical Director of the Philip Glass Ensemble Michael Riesman; ornithologist and author Dr. Douglas H. Pratt; the South Korean pop band BTS; the Cornell Lab of Ornithology; and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, among others.

We would like to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and Hydro-Québec for their support of the exhibitions Paola Pivi: Come check it out. Lies lies lies and Jakob Kudsk Steensen: Otherworlds. We also thank the Caisse Desjardins de la Culture for its support of the educational program associated with our spring-summer exhibitions.

About PHI

Founded and directed by Phoebe Greenberg in Montréal, PHI is a multidisciplinary cultural hub at the intersection of art, technology, and music. Focused on the future of art and its audiences, PHI champions radical ideas through collective experiences, social engagement, and audience interactivity.

PHI offers a dynamic and diverse program that includes exhibitions, performances, installations, immersive experiences and artist-in-residence programs, fostering unexpected encounters between artists and audiences. Committed to creation, dissemination, and support for contemporary artistic practices, PHI stands as a leading cultural destination in the heart of Old Montréal.

Locations
407 Saint-Pierre Street
Montréal, QC H2Y 2M3

451 Saint-Jean Street
Montréal, QC H2Y 2R5

465 Saint-Jean Street
Montréal, QC H2Y 2R6

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Image Descriptions
1. Three polar bears covered in bird feathers, posing and in movement on an off-white background; one in yellow, one in pink and one in white.
2. An eerie, immersive digital wilderness—lush, alien, and hauntingly alive with unseen forces.