Marianne Vitale (b. 1973, East Rockaway, New York) is a contemporary artist living and working in New York City. She graduated from School of Visual Arts, New York in 1996. For the 2010 Whitney Biennial, Vitale exhibited Patron, a highly acclaimed video piece which centered on contemporary art as an arena of sadomasochism. Since then, Vitale has often focused on sculptural installations of steel railroad components sourced from US track yards. Drawing from a heritage of Minimalist and Monumental sculptors, Vitale excavates American detritus such as railroad infrastructure, burned bridges and torn down outhouses. Her ability to bludgeon utilitarian material into works of extraordinary heft—in both their weight and vigor—retells their becoming and invention. Such manipulation creates a formal link between past and present, continually recalling the dark undertones of westward expansion and traditional notions of America. For the Performa 13 Biennial, Vitale was commissioned to produce The Missing Book of Spurs, a performance set in a saloon/brothel/weather station. Selected solo exhibitions include SPACE Gallery, Pittsburgh (2026); The Journal Gallery, New York (2025, 2020); Galleria Doris Ghetta, Italy (2023); Couvent des Cordeliers, Savenay (2020); and Zach Feuer Gallery, New York (2013), among others. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Venice Biennale (2022); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010); Saatchi Gallery, London (2018); and the High Line, New York (2014–15), among others. Vitale is represented by Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin.
American Art Catalogues published The World, the Flesh and the Devil in 2021 and Bottle People in 2022. The former includes an essay by Rachel Valinsky and considers Vitale’s research into the history of an American hospital built in France during World War I.