Lee Pivnik (b.1995) is an artist living in Miami, Florida. In 2018 he graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Sculpture. Working across disciplines, he takes inspiration from living systems and other species to imagine a future based on mutualistic relationships instead of extractive economies. Permeating his practice is the idea of entanglement - the touching, changing, mutating relationships between species and their environments. Through these intimacies, worlds arise —worlds of decay and degradation or verdant flourishing. His sculptures, drawings, and installations create a visual language for ecological entanglement, referencing fungal networks, epiphytic plants, and emergent animal architectures that inhabit South Florida. Pivnik founded and co-directs the Institute of Queer Ecology (IQECO), an ever-evolving collaborative organism that has worked with over 150 different artists to present interdisciplinary programming that oscillates between curating programs and directly producing artworks. IQECO projects are interdisciplinary, but grounded in the theoretical framework of Queer Ecology, an adaptive practice concerned with interconnectivity, intimacy, and multispecies relationality. IQECO explores the overlaps between queer cultural production and multispecies biological adaptation to reveal a vibrant and complex world of belonging. Lee Pivnik’s work has been included in solo or two-person shows at Hotel Art Pavillion (NY), Mild Climate (TN), Biosphere 2 (AZ), YoungArts (FL), and Hi-Lo Press (GA). He has been awarded Knight Arts Challenge Awards in 2019 and 2021, and a Creative Capital Award (2025). Pivnik has been an artist in residence at Biosphere 2 (2017), Mana Contemporary Miami (2018), Atlantic Center for the Arts (2021), Deering Estate (2022–23), Oolite Arts (2024) and Folly Tree Arboretum (2024). Working as the Institute of Queer Ecology, Pivnik has presented projects with the Guggenheim Museum (New York, NY), the United Nations - ART 2030 (New York, NY), the Institute of Contemporary Art (Miami, Florida), Museo de Arte Zapopan, (Zapopan, Mexico), the Julia Stoschek Collection (Düsseldorf, Germany), Centre Pompidou-Metz (Metz, France), Museum Schloss Moyland, (Bedburg-Hau, Germany), Kestner Gesellschaft (Hannover, Germany) the Medellín Museum of Modern Art (Medellín, Colombia), the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (Serbia), the Biennale of Sydney (Australia), Prairie (Chicago, IL), Bas Fisher Invitational (Miami, FL) Gas Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), and Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), among others.
Additional Artworks
From AIRIE.Foundation
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Meg Ojala
Everglades Undone, 2024
Inkjet
29.75 x 22 in
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Pierce Eldridge, Ashleigh Musk
AIRIE.Foundation Asks: P. Eldridge & Ashleigh Musk, 2023
Video
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Harumi Abe
Anhinga Trail, 2017
Acrylic and oil on panel
14 x 11 in
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Onajide Shabaka
Everglades Star Map #1, 2016
Watercolor and Ink on Plaster on Wood
16 x 28.5 in
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Cameron Gillie
New Turkey Key, 2010
11.5 x 17.5 in
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Heather Dewar
Imperfectly Wild: Learning to Love the Everglades at Pine Glades Lake, 2007
Essay
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Ada Perez Swenson
Slough Slog, 2004
Watercolor
12 x 15.5 in
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Donna Marxer
Dry/Wet Pine Island, 2002
Acrylic on Paper
30 x 22.5 in