Olek

Olek
See also: Olek, Nakło County
Olek
Birth name Agata Oleksiak
Born April 5, 1978[1]
Ruda Śląska, Poland[2][3]
Field installation, sculpture, fibre art
Training Adam Mickiewicz Universi ty
Patrons National Endowment for the Arts,[4] Fund for Creative Communities[5]
Website Official site

Olek (b. April 5, 1978,[1] fully Agata Oleksiak, or professionally Crocheted Olek) is a Polish-born American-residing artist whose work includes sculpture, installation, inflatables, and fiber art. Olek's installations have included crocheted bicycles, sculptures (including "Charging Bull"), apartments, and people. An entire false apartment covered in crocheting, including its occupants, is her most known piece, featured in various international media outlets.[6] The work generally includes members of the public or the media,[7] crocheted directly into the suit, without traditional fasteners.[8][9]

Olek has exhibiting in the United States, Germany, Brazil, Turkey,[10] France, Italy, Poland, and Costa Rica.[11]

Career

Oleksiak graduated with a degree in Cultural Studies from Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland, from 1997 to 2000.[11] Attending LaGuardia College, she won the National Arts Club's award for sculpture.[12] Early work included sculptures, costumes, and inflatables.

The artist first used crocheting as part of her art in 2003, having rediscovered her ability in the United States. She is said to have "wowed critics" at the Williamsburg Arts and Historical Society Surrealist Fashion Show that year.[13] By 2004, Oleksiak created "a large tentlike piece made of crocheted strips of cloth, hair, cassette tape and stuffed animals" work for a four-person show; running out of the window, The New York Times suggested this work gave the show at 5BE Gallery in Chelsea "a tour-de-force center to work around."[14] Her crocheted sculpture "Spill" (2005), featured in the Washington Post, included 1300 skinny white balloons cascading in an "intestinal shape".[15] She participated in The Waterways, a "socially conscious" art project on a vaporetto water bus during the 2005 Venice Biennale, presenting "Camouflage", "exploring the androgyny of fixed identity, sexuality, and culture".[16] In September and October of that year, Olek crocheted the windows of a burned-out, abandoned building near her artist residency in Utica, New York.[17][18] Her costumes for theatre and dance performances, created during this period, drew critical praise,[19][20] although a dance performance relating to one of her sculptures was panned.[21]

Olek's crocheted full body clothing, dubbed "wearable sculptures",[22] has been used in various projects. Various times, Olek has taken her participants onto the New York City Subway.[8] A DUMBO Arts Festival piece was "Painting to Shake Hands" was based on an "event score" in Yoko Ono's Grapefruit. Participants wore her wearable sculptures, with a hand through a stretched canvas, shaking the hands of passersby.[17] A second performance is being dubbed "Crocheted Grapefruit".[5] Performance piece "Thank You for Your Visit, Have a Nice Day", performed on Manhattan's 14th Street during the 2009 Art in Odd Places:SIGN, was inspired "by a uniformed attendant holding a "Hold the Handrail" sign in a Taipei metro station".[23] Performers held placards based on signs found by the artist, that were "emphatic, ironic or amused dialogue with their location."[22]

In 2009, she stated:

I think crochet, the way I create it, is a metaphor for the complexity and interconnectedness of our body and its systems and psychology. The connections are stronger as one fabric as opposed to separate strands, but, if you cut one, the whole thing will fall apart. Relationships are complex and greatly vary situation to situation. They are developmental journeys of growth, and transformation. Time passes, great distances are surpassed and the fabric which individuals are composed of compiles and unravels simultaneously.[24]

While some have drawn parallels between her artwork and yarn bombing, she doesn't consider her works to be connected. she told the New York Times in 2011 that:

I don't yarn bomb, I make art. If someone calls my bull a yarn bomb, I get really upset. Lots of people have aunts or grandmas who paint. Do you want to see that work in the galleries? No. The street is an extension of the gallery. Not everyone’s work deserves to be in public.[25]

Her creative philosophy is that "Life and art are inseparable."[17]

In 2009, she was a resident artist at Brazil's Instituto Sacatar.[26][24]

Originally stitched in her Park Slope apartment,[2] her apartment installation took "years" to prepare, she used an unknown amount of yarn skeins (primarily Red Heart brand).[27] Christopher Henry Gallery presented her first solo show, "Knitting is for Pus****".[28] Originally to run from September 9 to October 17, 2010,[29] a series of extensions lengthened it to May 2011. During that period, the gallery exhibited it in Miami, at the SCOPE Art Show.[30] After the Christopher Henry Gallery show wrapped, she indicated she was looking to sell the work for $90,000.[27]

In late December 2010, Olek installed a crocheted suit over "Charging Bull" (1989), a statue on Wall Street. Meant as a tribute to Arturo Di Modica, who installed the sculpture without permission, her work was torn off two hours later by a park caretaker, far shorter than Di Modica's guerilla art.[31][32]

She was the 2010-2011 Workspace artist-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.[17] She has created and performed at the Whitney Museum of American Art,[33] among other locations. In May 2011, she won at the 2nd Urban Arts Awards (Artaq), in the "Sculpture In Situ" category.[34] She will exhibit solo show at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, in August 2011,[35] She is scheduled to exhibit at Renwick Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in the show 40 under 40: Craft Futures. Running from July 20, 2012 to February 3, 2013, Renwick is looking to tour the show afterwards.[36][2]

Teamed with director Gina Vecchione and producer Michelle Price, Olek are creating a short silent film called YARNANA. "Inspired by the silent film genre, it relies solely on powerful music, sound design and physical expression. The characters speak through modern dance, physical comedy, capoeira, martial arts, poi, belly dancing, breakdance, acrobatics, gymnastics and the instincts of soul searchers." It was funded through Kickstarter fundraising.[37][38]

References

  1. ^ a b "Olek-Info". Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Olek/200915566758?sk=info. Retrieved 2011-06-28. 
  2. ^ a b c Wendy Goodman (May 2011). "I Yarn-Bombed This". New York Magazine (New York NY: New York Media Holdings). http://nymag.com/homedesign/spring2011/agata-oleksiak-2011-5/. Retrieved 22 May 2011. 
  3. ^ Note that the artists sometimes is listed as being from Silesia, Poland; Ruda Śląska is a city within the administrative division of Silesia.
  4. ^ Olek, Agata (15 October 2009). "Please, join me! and JUST BRING YOUR CLOTHES". OLEK. New York NY. http://agataolek.com/blog/?p=27. Retrieved 3 June 2011. 
  5. ^ a b Olek, Agata (17 May 2011). "Crocheted Grapefruit Performances June 19 (Sun), 20 (Mon), 21 (Tues)". OLEK. New York NY. http://agataolek.com/blog/?p=27. Retrieved 3 June 2011. 
  6. ^ Caporosso, Michele Wad (13 January 2011). "Crochet art". Vogue Italy. Milano, Italy: Condè Nast S.p.A.. http://www.vogue.it/en/people-are-talking-about/from-new-york/2011/01/crochet-art. Retrieved 6 June 2011. ; "Crafting a crochet world - in pictures". The Observer. London. 22 May 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2011/may/22/art?INTCMP=SRCH#/?picture=374857333&index=0. Retrieved 6 June 2011. ; Parent, Marie-Joëlle (11 April 2011). "De l'art urbain au crochet" (in French). canoe divertissement. http://fr.canoe.ca/divertissement/celebrites/nouvelles/mariejoelleparent/2011/04/11/17944946-qmi.html. Retrieved 6 June 2011. 
  7. ^ Dicker, Geoffrey (4 February 2011). "Untitled segment". NBC News at 5 (New York NY). http://according2g.com/2011/02/olek-on-nbc-news-at-5/. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
  8. ^ a b Romano, Jowy (20 October 2010). "The World of Olek". Subway Art Blog. New York NY. http://subwayartblog.com/2010/10/20/the-world-of-olek/. Retrieved 22 May 2011. 
  9. ^ Olek, Christopher Henry (26 November 2010) (streaming video, also as MP4). Knitting is For Pus**** (documentary short). New York NY: Vimeo. Event occurs at 00:00:10. http://vimeo.com/17223660. Retrieved 25 May 2011. 
  10. ^ "Olek". Workspace: Current Session. Manhattan NY: Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. 2011. http://www.lmcc.net/artists/workspace/olek. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
  11. ^ a b "Olek", professional resume, accessed 7 June 2011.
  12. ^ "28th Annual Student Show". The National Arts Club Bulletin: 3. Spring 2004. http://www.nationalartsclub.org/news/bulletin/NACspring04.pdf. Retrieved 6 June 2011. 
  13. ^ Cukrov, Claudia (7 May 2009). "Crochet Work by Olek". pskf. New York NY. http://www.psfk.com/2009/05/crochet-work-by-olek.html. Retrieved 12 June 2011. 
  14. ^ Cotter, Holland (6 August 2004). "ART IN REVIEW; 'The Day After I Destroyed the Women I Wished I Had Not Destroyed Them'". The New York Times (New York NY). http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/06/arts/art-review-day-after-destroyed-women-wished-had-not-destroyed-them.html?scp=2&sq=Agata%20Oleksiak&st=cse. Retrieved 12 June 2011. 
  15. ^ Padget, Jonathan (10 February 2005). "Knit One, Swirls Too". Washington Post (Washington DC): p. C05. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12508-2005Feb9.html. Retrieved 22 May 2011. 
  16. ^ "Waterways 2005 Hits the Venice Biennale". Varaart-issued press release. New York NY: PRWEB. 9 June 2005. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/06/prweb248952.htm. Retrieved 13 June 2011. 
  17. ^ a b c d Gagliano, Maria (5 January 2011). "Made in Brooklyn: Olek". Brooklyn Based (Brooklyn, New York City NY). http://brooklynbased.net/blog/2011/01/made-in-brooklyn-olek/. Retrieved 22 May 2011. 
  18. ^ "Agata Olek Oleksiak". SculptureSpace. 2005. http://sculpturespace.org/oleksiak/. Retrieved 13 June 2011. 
  19. ^ Dunning, Jennifer (14 June 2007). "Sex-Positive Feminism and the Single Snail". The New York Times (New York NY). http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/arts/dance/14aria.html?scp=6&sq=Agata%20Oleksiak&st=cse. Retrieved 13 June 2011. "In “Snail” Ms. Anthony slowly moved around the stage in a fantastical piece of looping, wearable sculpture of yarn, rope, twine and wire, created by Agata Oleksiak." 
  20. ^ Dunning, Jennifer (9 December 2006). "The Performer Onstage and Her Image on Walls". The New York Times (New York NY). http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/arts/dance/09chen.html?scp=4&sq=Agata%20Oleksiak&st=cse. Retrieved 13 June 2011. "Agata Oleksiak’s costumes, bunched and lacy scraps of white and bright color, added to the fairy-tale look." 
  21. ^ Dunning, Jennifer (21 November 2005). "Disrupting Surprises Pounce Amid Serenity". The New York Times (New York NY). http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/21/arts/dance/21shua.html?scp=3&sq=Agata%20Oleksiak&st=cse. Retrieved 13 June 2011. "The solo was less interesting when she related to a sculpture by Agata Oleksiak - "unwrapped for the first time" on Saturday, the program promised breathlessly - that consisted of a small stepladder wrapped in white muslin and crammed with balls." 
  22. ^ a b "Art in Odd Places 2009". Time Out New York (New York NY: Time Out New York). 25 August 2009. http://newyork.timeout.com/things-to-do/this-week-in-new-york/46948/art-in-odd-places-2009. Retrieved 23 May 2011. 
  23. ^ Collet, Michele (2010). "The Incredible Crocheted World of Olek". Environmental Graffiti. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-agata-olek-%E2%80%93-crocheted-body. Retrieved 23 May 2011. 
  24. ^ a b Lee, See-ming (16 October 2009). "Agata Olek / 13th Annual DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival NYC 2009: Part 8 of 10 / Art + Artists". SML Pro Blog. New York NY. http://blog.seeminglee.com/2009/10/agata-olek-13th-annual-dumbo-art-under.html. Retrieved 4 June 2011. 
  25. ^ Wollan, Malia (18 May 2011). "Graffiti’s Cozy, Feminine Side". The New York Times (New York NY). http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/fashion/creating-graffiti-with-yarn.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss. Retrieved 23 May 2011. 
  26. ^ "Fairy Tales Are Not Real". INPUT Journal. New York NY: INPUT Journal Foundation. 2009. http://www.inputjournal.org/fairytalesarenotreal.html. Retrieved 4 June 2011. 
  27. ^ a b LaBarre, Suzanne (16 May 2011). "An Entire Apartment Covered In Crochet, On Sale For $90,000". Fast Co. Design. New York NY: Mansueto Ventures, LLC.. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663850/an-entire-apartment-covered-in-crochet-on-sale-for-90000-slideshow. Retrieved 3 June 2011. 
  28. ^ Note that this is indeed the official name, with asterisks. This represents "Knitting is for Pussies".
  29. ^ "“OLEK: Knitting is for Pus****” at Christopher Henry Gallery". SOHO Journal. Manhattan NY. 2010. http://www.sohojournal.com/content/%E2%80%9Colek-knitting-pus%E2%80%9D-christopher-henry-gallery. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
  30. ^ "Olek - Knitting is for Pus**** Closing Party!". Artlog. Brooklyn NY. 2011. http://artlog.com/events/79391-olek-knitting-is-for. Retrieved 23 May 2011. 
  31. ^ "Olek crocheted the Wall Street Bull". Bowery Boogie. New York NY. 27 December 2010. http://www.boweryboogie.com/2010/12/olek-crocheted-the-wall-street-bull/. Retrieved 22 May 2011. 
  32. ^ Blanco, Octavio (28 December 2010). "Cozy Wall Street Bull sends warmest wishes". CNNMoney. http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/27/news/economy/crocheted_bull/index.htm. Retrieved 23 May 2011. 
  33. ^ Ciari, Sabina. "Model/Performance Artist- Wearable Sculpture by Olek". Sabina Ciari portfolio. Behance. http://www.behance.net/gallery/ModelPerformance-Artist-Wearable-Sculpture-by-Olek/849421. Retrieved 22 May 2011. 
  34. ^ "Nominated for the Artaq Awards 2011 and winners". 2nd Urban Arts Award. 2011. http://www.artaq.eu/en/nomines2011.html. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
  35. ^ "Upcoming Exhibitions". Jonathan LeVine Gallery. New York NY. 2011. http://www.jonathanlevinegallery.com/?method=Exhibit.Upcoming. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
  36. ^ "40 under 40: Craft Futures". Renwick Gallery. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution. 2011. http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/renwick40/. Retrieved 25 May 2011. 
  37. ^ http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/yarnana/yarnana?ref=users
  38. ^ http://www.boweryboogie.com/2011/06/oleks-next-project-is-yarnana-film/

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