ANA JOTTA

Ana Jotta: My work never surprises me: it’s good or it’s bad. When something ‘stirs’, I make sure it keeps going. I’m stubborn. You have to keep at a task, come back, and I come back and I keep at it!

Ampersand: Is there life after work?

AJ: [laughter] I once read this sentence on a wall: ”Haverá vida depois do trabalho?” And until then I thought that there wouldn’t be, that it wasn’t possible to separate, and it also became the title of an exhibition I did in Lisbon [2001]. But now it’s more... more what?! I’ve grown older, I’ve grown up, and now I want to leave work! I want to separate myself from work... But I don’t think it will happen. [laughter] Because all of that is mixed up, after all. Always, life and work, always together.

A : “beaucoup, peu, rien” ?

AJ: Clean, simple, raw. The exact opposite of where I live. I’m getting older and older, and that’s fine with me. I’ve given up cigarettes, but cigarettes don’t count. I’ve given up music. And the cinema’s gone too. Yes, music, cinema, reading, it’s all over. And it’s not for lack of interest, it’s good! It’s something that stays here, it’s my business assets. Other than that, nothing has changed... Oh yes, now I’m a bit obsessed with people from behind. [laughter]

A: Ana, were you already painting a lot in the 90s?

__AJ: Yes, and if I wanted to be classified, I would even say that I am a painter. I find it absolutely magnificent to stand there like a stick struggling against a wall, a sheet of paper, anything. So sometimes I still paint on screens, or on walls, but never again on canvases. The first screen?! What I am sure of is that I was at the cinema - I did that every day - I had gone to see Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, and this sentence kept repeating itself: “You can cut yourself off from the past, but the past can never cut itself off from you.” And it had such an effect on me that I painted that sentence. [laughter] That’s my first canvas [Magnolia, 2000].

A: And you used to go to the studio every day?

AJ: Yes, just like I was an employee. I painted, I smoked, I listened to music. But anyway, painting ran away! [laughter] But it’s everything I love: simple, economical. You, a brush and a surface. It’s magnificent! So we do what needs to be done: I transform because obviously it’s much easier for me to produce a three-dimensional object. Three-dimensional like life.[laughter]

A: You have always been transforming and decorating the interiors where you live.

AJ: The decoration sometimes changes. I don’t like white. I like decorations, I like decorating, I like the decorative arts, not at all minor, as they say. The link between my work and my houses is my life of interior. The other, the intimate, doesn’t count.

A: Ana, what are your plans for this first exhibition here at Marian Goodman Gallery?

AJ: To throw myself into the abyss! To move forward, to leave. Yes, it is a departure; let’s even say a point of departure. You always have to reinvent yourself. Plastic surgery![laughter]

Ana Jotta was born in 1946 in Lisbon, where she lives and works. She studied at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts and the La Cambre School of Visual Arts in Brussels. Since the 1980s, Ana Jotta’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions in numerous prestigious institutions in Europe and the United States such as WIELS in Brussels, Belgium (2024-2025); Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland (2024); CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco, USA (2023); Festival d’Automne in Paris, France (2022); Le Crédac in Ivry-sur-Seine, France (2016); Établissement d’en face in Brussels (2016). In Portugal, she has also exhibited her work regularly, notably at the Museu de Serralves in Porto (2022 and 2005), at the Casa São Roque- Centro de Arte in Porto (2019), at Culturgest Porto (2016) and at Culturgest Lisbon (2014 and 2009). She has received several awards: the Grande Prémio Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Portugal (2023), the Rosa-Shapire-Kunstpreis, Germany (2017), the AICA award, Portugal (2014) and the EDP Foundation Art Grand Prize, Portugal (2013).

Ampersand is a program looking at artistic enterprise. It has been kept in operation fostering friendships and numerous collaborations. Run by editor Alice Dusapin and artist Martin Laborde, formerly in Lisbon (2017-2024), Ampersand is currently itinerant. Past exhibitions include among others works by Zoé Beloff, Keren Cytter, Moyra Davey, Jana Euler, Sylvie Fanchon, Tina Girouard, Richard Hawkins, Pati Hill, Chris Langdon, Bern Porter, Wolfgang Stoerchle.

Marian Goodman Gallery champions the work of artists who stand among the most influential of our time and represents over five generations of diverse thought and practice. The Gallery’s exhibition program, characterised by its caliber and rigor, provides international platforms for its artists to showcase their work, foster vital dialogues with new audiences, and advance their practices within nonprofit and institutional realms. Established in New York City in 1977, Marian Goodman Gallery gained prominence early in its trajectory for introducing the work of seminal European artists to American audiences. Today, through its exhibition spaces in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, the Gallery maintains its global focus, representing some 50 artists working in the U.S. and internationally.