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My work synthesizes two distinct cultural traditions: It integrates the violent history of my native Latin America to contemporary US-based predatory cycles of consumption and disposal of goods, interweaving a Catholic carnal imagery with the reality of waste in capitalism. Influenced by imagery of slaughtered cattle I saw during my upbringing in Argentina, where meat is a source of collective pride and identity, I create analogies between the butchered body of the animal and violence towards the female body in naturalistic sculptures of carcasses for which I “cannibalize” my own wardrobe. Inspired by early feminist artists who put their bodies in their performances, the use of my own clothing gives me a place in the work, building upon the groundwork of Feminist Art by integrating my own focus on gendered-violence and consumer culture. In recent years, instigated by the climate crisis, I’ve transposed my interest on the wounded body to the body of the earth, making sculptures of severed tree limbs which reveal man-made cuts and an interior reminiscent of human anatomy. Fabric is second skin to me. As a fine arts student in Buenos Aires, I interned at a cosmetic surgery office where I discovered the richest of the visual worlds, right underneath the skin. I was exposed to gruesome scenes which inspired me to follow a tradition of artists interested in seeing flesh as subject and object, as the locus to explore the limits, the nature, and the voracious needs of the body.
Kostianovsky received her BFA from the Prilidiano Pueyrredón National School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, USA.
2026 exhibitions for Kostianovsky include the Mauritshuis Museum, Hague, NL; the Brandywine Art Museum, PA; ARTYARD, NJ; Columbia Museum of Art, SC; MANIFESTA, Lyon Bienniale, FR; and the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, FR.
Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as the The Royal Academy, London, UK; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris, FR; Cheekwood Museum, TN; the Baker Museum, FL; the Denver Botanic Gardens, CO; Smack Mellon, NY; the Fuller Craft Museum, MA; Ogden Contemporary Arts, UT; UMOCA, UT; El Museo del Barrio, NY; The Jewish Museum, NY; The Nevada Museum of Art, NV; The Musée du Textile et de la Mode, FR; The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff, Alberta, CA; Newport Art Museum, RI; Kunsthalle Trier, DE; Les Franciscaines Art Center, FR; the Staten Island Museum of Art, NY, the 21C Museum, KY; and the Chicago Architecture Biennial, IL among others.
Kostianovsky is the recipient of distinguished awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Virginia A. Groot Foundation, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Puffin Foundation. Selected residencies include Yaddo, L’AiR Arts, Wave Hill Gardens, LMCC, Socrates Sculpture Park, and Franconia Sculpture Park.
Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Art in America, The Boston Globe, WBUR, The Village Voice, Marie Claire, La Repubblica, El Diario New York, Colossal, Hyperallergic, Connaissance des Arts, Le Quotidien de L’Art, and numerous other international publications. Kostianovsky currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.