Of Monumental Proportions, Karyn Olivier’s Everything That’s Alive Moves
By Alex Smith for Artblog
March 23, 2020
Karyn Olivier is an artist creating structures with a lasting impact, building columnar sculptures, sometimes of stunning beauty, and other times of a washed out simplicity that can still inspire. Her pieces invite viewers to think about the politics of construction, the history of not just specific buildings, but building itself.
In Everything That’s Alive Moves, a set of pieces currently displaying at ICA Philadelphia, we witness more than a series of painstakingly imagined monuments–the pieces in this show radiate with vitality despite their austere, often distancing construction. While it’s often difficult to garner warmth in minimalist settings–particularly within the ICA Philadelphia that takes great strides to present a modern, clean atmosphere with little accoutrements–Olivier’s attempts to ground the space in a soulful confluence of ideas is admirable.