Karyn Olivier

Last updated
Karyn Olivier
Karyn-olivier-pew-fellow-2019-1-web.jpg
Born1968
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
NationalityTrinidadian American
EducationBA Dartmouth College, MFA Cranbrook Academy of Art
Known forPublic Art, installation, sculpture, social practice, photography

Karyn Olivier (born 1968) is a Philadelphia-based artist who creates public art, sculptures, installations and photography. Olivier alters familiar objects, spaces, and locations, often reinterpreting the role of monuments. Her work intersects histories and memories with present-day narratives. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Olivier was born in 1968 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, where she and her twin sister lived with their family before they moved to Brooklyn, New York, in early childhood. Olivier received a BA in psychology from Dartmouth College in 1989 and an MFA in ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2001. She now resides in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [2] [3] She is also an associate professor in the Sculpture department at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [4]

Karyn Olivier, 2009 Karyn Olivier, 2009.jpg
Karyn Olivier, 2009

Work

In Olivier's work, familiar objects, spaces and locations are altered in function and medium to create uncanny meditations on stagnancy, division and the weight of materiality. [5] Her sculptures, installations and public art explore the politics and poetics of space, and the role of viewers in shaping their own experience and engagement. [6] Olivier has been engaging with and reinterpreting the role of monuments creating both temporary and permanent sculptures, installations and "monuments." [1] [7] [8]

Selected works

The Battle Is Joined (2017) was a temporary public sculpture in collaboration with Monument Lab and Mural Arts Program. Olivier concealed the Battle of Germantown Memorial (Vernon Park, Philadelphia) with a mirrored acrylic structure. [9] This "initiated" a conversation between two monuments in the park—Pastorius Monument, which honors Francis Daniel Pastorius, a German settler who led the first Quaker protest against slavery in 1688, [10] and the Battle of Germantown Memorial, honoring a failed George Washington-led revolutionary war battle. [11] [12] Hyperallergic's  Samantha Mitchell commented "Karyn Olivier's "The Battle is Joined" approaches the question of what might be done with existing monuments to update their contemporary resonance. [13] Surrounded by a full-scale box made of mirrored Plexiglas, the original monument is turned into a shimmering, reflective void, almost invisible from some angles, mirroring both a dense green canopy of leaves and a bustling but economically depressed strip of Germantown Avenue bordering the park. [14] Altering the face of this often-overlooked monument to early American history to make it an inclusive reflection of the present community has particular resonance for Olivier, who lives in Germantown and has spent a lot of time discussing the monument with her neighbors. [9] [15]

Witness (2018) At the University of Kentucky's Memorial Hall , Olivier created a permanent site-specific installation. [16] She reproduced the African American and Native American figures from a controversial New Deal-era fresco inserting these images onto the domed ceiling of the vestibule, which she had gold-leafed. [17] Four portraits of important (but under recognized) individuals in Kentucky's history are presented in the circular medallions below the ceiling. [18] Around the base of the dome is a Frederick Douglass quote: "There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him." [18] The Herald-Leader Editorial Board said "What a beautiful — literally, beautiful — response to concerns that a New Deal-era mural at the University of Kentucky was racially insensitive to 21st century viewers." [19]

Here and Now/Glacier, Shard, Rock (2015) was Part of Creative Time's exhibition Drifting in Daylight. [20] Olivier created a lenticular billboard that blended contrasting topographic and anthropologic histories through three images—a glacier, a pottery shard from the historic Seneca Village settlement, and an image of the contemporary landscape. [21] The Wisconsin Glacier travelled through what is now New York City, 20,000 years ago. Seneca Village was a vibrant Manhattan settlement founded by free black property owners who were displaced when the city claimed the right of 'eminent domain' to purchase their properties and develop Central Park. [22] As noted in Nature's Nation: American Art and Environment "As one observer explained, the work "elegantly reminds us of the constantly mutable nature of the park and its history," including its geological past and its modern political ecology. Here and Now reframed Olmsted's picturesque landscape from Olivier's viewpoint as an African American woman attentive to human difference and non-human agency." [23]

Other activities

Olivier served on the jury that chose the winners of the Rome Prize for the 2023–24 cycle, co-chaired by Naomi Beckwith and Fred Wilson. [24]

Awards, grants, residencies

Awards

Grants

Residencies

Exhibitions

Solo (select)

2020
  "Everything That's Alive Moves," Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, January 24 – May 10, 2020 [27]

2019
  When I See It, Stockton University Art Gallery, Galloway, NJ, September 4 – November 12, 2019
  Because Time In This Place Does Not Obey An Order, Le Murate Progetti Arte Contemporanea, Florence, Italy, February 8 – March 16, 2019

2018
  Karyn Olivier, Lehigh University Art Galleries and Teaching Museum, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, January 24 – May 25, 2018 [28]

2014
  Eye Around Matter, Marso Galería Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico, April 3 – May 31, 2014

2009
  Road Signs, Moores Opera House, University of Houston, Houston, Texas (video premiere and live performance), November 16, 2009

2007
  A Closer Look, Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, MO, February 9 – May 15, 2007 [29]

2006
  Factory Installed, Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA, April 2 – September 10, 2006

2005
  Time to go home, Dunn and Brown Contemporary, Dallas, TX, October 28 – December 17, 2005 [30]

Group (select)

2019
  Silence is a Fence for Wisdom, Arte in Memoria Biennale 10, Rome, Italy
  Δx (Displacement), American Academy in Rome Gallery, Rome, Italy, February 20 – March 31, 2019 [31]
  Emanation 2019, Museum of American Glass, Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center, Millville, NJ, April 12 – December 31, 2019

2017
  The Battle is Joined, Mural Arts/Monument Lab, commission, Vernon Park, Philadelphia, PA, September 16 – November 19, 2017
  The Expanded Caribbean: Contemporary Photography at the Crossroads, Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, September 19 – December 10

2015
  Drifting in Daylight, Creative Time, Central Park, NY, NY, May 15 – June 20, 2015
  Particle, Ronald Feldman Gallery, NY, NY, February 14 – March 21, 2015

2014
  How the Light Gets In: Recent Work by Seven Former Core Fellows, Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX

2009
  30 Seconds off an Inch, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, November 12, 2009—March 14, 2010
  Rockstone and Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, November 14, 2009—March 14, 2010 [32]

2007
  Black Light/White Noise, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX, May 26 – August 5, 2007 [33]

2006
  Trace, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, June 30 – November 12, 2006 [34]
  Quid Pro Quo, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, July 19 – October 22, 2006
  Insight Out, Wanås Foundation, Knislinge, Sweden [35]

2005
  Frequency, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, November 9, 2005—March 12, 2006 [36]
  Greater New York 2005, MoMA P.S.1, Long Island City, NY, March 13 – September 26, 2005
  Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art since 1970, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, TX, January 22 – April 17, 2005

2004
  Emerging Artists Fellowship Exhibition, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY, September 12, 2004—March 6, 2005
  In Practice Series, SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY, January 11 – April 11, 2004
  African American Art from the Permanent Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX, February 22 – May 9, 2004

2003
  Sweet Dreams, Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN [37]

Professional Academic Career

Olivier is an associate professor of sculpture at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University. [38]   From 2005 to 2007 she was a sculpture faculty member at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. Prior to her appointment to Tyler School of Art and Architecture, she was an assistant sculpture professor and Ceramics Department Head at the University of Houston's School of Art. [39]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Chamberlain (sculptor)</span> American sculptor

John Angus Chamberlain, was an American sculptor and filmmaker. At the time of his death he resided and worked on Shelter Island, New York.

The Tyler School of Art and Architecture is based at Temple University, a large, urban, public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Tyler currently enrolls about 1,350 undergraduate students and about 200 graduate students in a wide variety of academic degree programs, including architecture, art education, art history, art therapy, ceramics, city and regional planning, community arts practices, community development, facilities management, fibers and material studies, glass, graphic and interactive design, historic preservation, horticulture, landscape architecture, metals/jewelry/CAD-CAM, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and visual studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ursula von Rydingsvard</span> American sculptor (born 1942)

Ursula von Rydingsvard is a sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for creating large-scale works influenced by nature, primarily using cedar and other forms of timber.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teresita Fernández</span> American artist

Teresita Fernández is a New York-based visual artist best known for her public sculptures and unconventional use of materials. Her work is characterized by an interest in perception and the psychology of looking. Her experiential, large-scale works are often inspired by landscape and natural phenomena as well as diverse historical and cultural references. Her sculptures present spectacular optical illusions and evoke natural phenomena, land formations, and water in its infinite forms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Shea</span> American sculptor and artist (born 1948)

Judith Shea is an American sculptor and artist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1948. She received a degree in fashion design at Parsons School of Design in 1969 and a BFA in 1975. This dual education formed the basis for her figure based works. Her career has three distinct phases: The use of cloth and clothing forms from 1974 to 1981; Hollow cast metal clothing-figure forms from 1982 until 1991; and carved full-figure statues made of wood, cloth, clay, foam and hair beginning in 1990 to present.

Catherine Jansen has been inventing, exploring and creating photographic processes that merge state of the art technology with traditional photography since the late 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Adkins</span> American artist

Terry Roger Adkins was an American artist. He was Professor of Fine Arts in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.

Peter Grippe was an American sculptor, printmaker, and painter. As a sculptor, he worked in bronze, terracotta, wire, plaster, and found objects. His "Monument to Hiroshima" series (1963) used found objects cast in bronze sculptures to evoke the chaotic humanity of the Japanese city after its incineration by atomic bomb. Other Grippe Surrealist sculptural works address less warlike themes, including that of city life. However, his expertise extended beyond sculpture to ink drawings, watercolor painting, and printmaking (intaglio). He joined and later directed Atelier 17, the intaglio studio founded in London and moved to New York at the beginning of World War II by its founder, Stanley William Hayter. Today, Grippe's 21 Etchings and Poems, a part of the permanent collection at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, is available as part of the museum's virtual collection.

Rachel Feinstein is an American artist who specializes in sculpture. She is best known for baroque, fantasy-inspired sculptures like "The Snow Queen", which was drawn from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. There have been over two dozen group and solo showings of her work in the United States, Europe and Asia. She is married to painter John Currin. In 2011 the New York Times described them as "the ruling power couple in today's art world."

Cynthia Carlson is an American visual artist, living and working in New York.

Joyce J. Scott is an African-American artist, sculptor, quilter, performance artist, installation artist, print-maker, lecturer and educator. Named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016, and a Smithsonian Visionary Artist in 2019, Scott is best known for her figurative sculptures and jewelry using free form, off-loom beadweaving techniques, similar to a peyote stitch. Each piece is often constructed using thousands of glass seed beads or pony beads, and sometimes other found objects or materials such as glass, quilting and leather. In 2018, she was hailed for working in new medium — a mixture of soil, clay, straw, and cement — for a sculpture meant to disintegrate and return to the earth. Scott is influenced by a variety of diverse cultures, including Native American and African traditions, Mexican, Czech, and Russian beadwork, illustration and comic books, and pop culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maren Hassinger</span> African-American artist and educator (born 1947)

Maren Hassinger is an African-American artist and educator whose career spans four decades. Hassinger uses sculpture, film, dance, performance art, and public art to explore the relationship between the natural world and industrial materials. She incorporates everyday materials in her art, like wire rope, plastic bags, branches, dirt, newspaper, garbage, leaves, and cardboard boxes. Hassinger has stated that her work “focuses on elements, or even problems—social and environmental—that we all share, and in which we all have a stake…. I want it to be a humane and humanistic statement about our future together.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polly Apfelbaum</span> American contemporary visual artist (born 1955)

Polly E. Apfelbaum is an American contemporary visual artist, who is primarily known for her colorful drawings, sculptures, and fabric floor pieces, which she refers to as "fallen paintings". She currently lives and works in New York City, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ree Morton</span> American sculptor

Ree Morton was an American visual artist who was closely associated with the postminimalist and feminist art movements of the 1970s.

Michael Somoroff is a conceptual artist, director, and photographer. Somoroff has directed and created work for advertising agencies, publications and cultural institutions. He is also a teacher and cultural commentator who has worked for Stony Brook University, The University of the Arts, The Rothko Chapel and the International Center of Photography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kambui Olujimi</span> American visual artist (born 1976)

Kambui Olujimi is a New York-based visual artist working across disciplines using installation, photography, performance, tapestry, works on paper, video, large sculptures and painting. His artwork reflects on public discourse, mythology, historical narrative, social practices, exchange, mediated cultures, resilience and autonomy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Wilson</span> American artist

Paula Wilson is an African American "mixed media" artist creating works examining women's identities through a lens of cultural history. She uses sculpture, collage, painting, installation, and printmaking methods such as silkscreen, lithography, and woodblock. In 2007 Wilson moved from Brooklyn, New York, to Carrizozo, New Mexico, where she currently lives and works with her woodworking partner Mike Lagg.

Doreen Garner is an American sculptor and performance artist. Her art practice explores where history, power, and violence meet on the body via beauty or medicine. Garner has exhibited at a number of venues, including New Museum, Abrons Arts Center, Pioneer Works, Socrates Sculpture Park, The National Museum of African American History in Washington, D.C., Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art in Brooklyn, and Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. Garner holds a monthly podcast called #trashDAY with artist Kenya (Robinson). Garner lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Virgil Marti is an American visual artist recognized for his installations blending fine art, design, and decor from a range of styles and periods. Marti’s immersive sculptural environments, often evoking nature and the landscape, combine references from high culture with decorative, flamboyant, or psychedelic imagery, materials, and objects of personal significance.

Brie Ruais is an American artist based in Brooklyn, New York, working in large “multi-faceted” ceramic sculptures, performance, photography, video, and site-specific installation.

References

  1. 1 2 "Karyn Olivier: Everything That's Alive Moves - ICA Philadelphia". Institute of Contemporary Art - Philadelphia, PA. 2019-10-22. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  2. "KARYN OLIVIER » bio" . Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  3. "Karyn Olivier". Tyler School of Art. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  4. "Karyn Olivier". Tyler School of Art.
  5. "LPD Dialogue on Culture - Because Time In This Place Does Not Obey An Order- Art and Social Justice: Engaging with the Past - Olivier Karyn , Artist, American Academy in Rome". lapietradialogues.org. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  6. "Because Time In This Place Does Not Obey An Order | Karyn Olivier BHMF". Le Murate PAC. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  7. Chernick, Karen (April 30, 2020). "Philadelphia Will Finally Memorialize an Enslaved Woman Freed in 1776". Atlas Obscura.
  8. "Karyn Olivier Subverts the Formal Seriousness of Monuments". Hyperallergic. May 6, 2020.
  9. 1 2 "Art project cloaks Germantown monument on anniversary of historic battle". metro.us. 6 October 2017. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  10. Gerbner. Quaker Roots.
  11. "Battle of Germantown". HISTORY. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  12. "The Battle Is Joined". Mural Arts Philadelphia. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  13. "Philadelphia's Monument Lab Asks, "What's Right for Public Space?"". Hyperallergic. 2017-10-09. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  14. aclair (2019-10-21). "Karyn Olivier". The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  15. "Monument as 'Restless Object': An Interview with Karyn Olivier". Mural Arts Philadelphia. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  16. "Memorial Hall Visitors 'Witness' New Perspective on Kentucky History". UKNow. 2018-08-24. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  17. James, Josh. "Memorial Hall Artist Karyn Olivier Isn't After Resolution. She Wants More Questions". wuky.org. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  18. 1 2 Childress, Rick. "Once anonymous, now revered: Memorial Hall art adds context to debate of race in art". The Kentucky Kernel. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  19. "A picture-perfect response at the University of Kentucky". Lexington Herald Reader. September 2018.
  20. "Drifting in Daylight: Art in Central Park". Creative Time. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  21. June 2015, Manon Verchot4 (2015-06-04). "Artist Reawakens Glacial Past In Central Park". GlacierHub. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  22. "Karyn Olivier". Creative Time. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  23. "Nature's Nation: American Art and Environment". Panorama. 2019. doi: 10.24926/24716839.1709 . ISSN   2471-6839.
  24. Maximilíano Durón (24 April 2023), Artists Win Coveted Rome Prize, Including Dread Scott and Nao Bustamante ARTnews .
  25. "Tyler's Karyn Olivier wins Rome Prize". Tyler School of Art. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  26. "American Academy in Rome Announces 2018–19 Fellows". Artforum. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  27. "Artforum.com". www.artforum.com.
  28. "Artist Karyn Olivier - The Complexity of Being Human | Lehigh University Art Galleries". luag.lehigh.edu. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  29. "Karyn Olivier at Laumeier Sculpture Park". artdaily.cc. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  30. "Play Pretties". Dallas Observer. 2005-10-27. Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  31. Trezza, Claudia (March 4, 2019). "Review of "Cinque Mostre 2019: Δx Displacement"". American Academy in Rome.
  32. Genocchio, Benjamin (2009-12-04). "West Indian Art Is on Exhibit at Real Art Ways in Hartford". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  33. "Black Light/White Noise: Sound and Light in Contemporary Art at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston". Artforum. Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  34. Johnson, Ken (2006-08-18). "Art in Review; Trace". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  35. Johannesson, Sune (2006). ""Varagod och sitt," Krisitanstadsbladet, 2006, p.39" (PDF). Krisitanstadsbladet.
  36. ""Frequency" at The Studio Museum in Harlem". Artforum. Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  37. "Art Review: "Sweet Dreams" and "Opposing the Opposition" - Mn Artists". mnartists.org. Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  38. "Karyn Olivier". Tyler School of Art. Retrieved 2020-01-06.
  39. "Resume" (PDF). karynolivier.com. Retrieved 2020-07-10.