KARYN OLIVIER
City selects Karyn Olivier work for installation at Vel R. Phillips Plaza “Olivier’s permanent installation will be a memorial titled “I Didn’t Do It Alone,” that honors the late Milwaukee politician, attorney, judge and Civil Rights activist, Vel R. Phillips.”
In Spring of 2026, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) will present a solo exhibition of the work of Karyn Olivier. “Five artists at this year’s Whitney Biennial have very close Philly ties”
The Philadelphia Inquirer article focuses on five Philly based artists in the Whitney Biennial “Five artists at this year’s Whitney Biennial have very close Philly ties”
I am a participating artist in El Museo del Barrio’s Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024, the museum’s second large-scale survey of Latinx contemporary art. ARTnews published the artist list. “El Museo del Barrio Names Artist List for Its 2024 Triennial, with an Expanded, Global Focus”
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the upcoming unveiling of the Stenton Museum Dinah Memorial, a project I was chosen for in 2019. “At long last, the ‘Dinah’ memorial will be unveiled in Philadelphia’s Logan neighborhood.” Photo: Courtesy of Stenton Mansion
A review of the Whitney Biennial was published on ArtNEWS: “While many bodies have fallen prey to the watery depths of the ocean, traces of their presences always linger behind,” -Alex Greenberger, “A Blazing, Brilliant Whitney Biennial Heralds a New Kind of Body Art”
Phoebe Bradford included my work in “Who to See at Whitney Biennial 2024.” for Ocula.
My work was reviewed by Valentina Di Liscia in Hyperallergic. “First Impressions From the 2024 Whitney Biennial”
The New York Times published an article announcing the upcoming 2024 Whitney Biennial in “Whitney Biennial Picks a ‘Dissonant Chorus’ of Artists to Probe Turbulent Times.”
I am excited to announce I am one of 71 artists to participate in the upcoming Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing.
I am part of this years Prospect New Orleans Triennial: Prospect.6 the future is present, the harbinger is home.
I’m honored to participate in the first Malta Biennale. Malta Biennale 2024
In June I launched my second solo show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in NYC Karyn Olivier: How A Home Is Made Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
June 22 – July 28, 2023 Photo credit: Pierre Le Hors.
I was also thrilled to be in conversation with Alison Stewart on her WNYC show All Of It to talk about the exhibition. All Of It with Alison Stewart: Artist Karyn Olivier’s Show, “How A Home is Made” WNYC June 11, 2023.
I recently completed my largest permanent commission to date—a site-specific installation at Newark Liberty International Airport’s new Terminal A. The work was featured in the New York Times Art Tells New Jersey Stories at Newark’s New Terminal A by Hilarie M. Sheets. Photo credit: Zack DeZon.
This summer I presented my first solo show titled At the Intersection of Two Faults at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in NYC.
I am thrilled to be featured in the current Spring issue of BOMB magazine.
I am honored to be entrusted to create a memorial for Bethel Burying Ground, an early 19th century cemetery where over 5,000 African Americans have been laid to rest.
I am honored to be a 2020 recipient of the Anonymous Was A Woman award. This is an unrestricted grant of $25,000 awarded each year to ten woman-identified artists over the age of 40 and at a critical junction in their career. The name of the grant program refers to a line in Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own.”
I am so excited to begin working with Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.
The controversy over monuments and memorials in relationship to slavery was renewed with attention placed on the Ann Rice O’Hanlon mural—and consequently my own work—at the University of Kentucky. This controversy was written about in The New York Times, as well as in an opinion editorial I wrote that was published in the Washington Post.
My exhibition, ‘Everything That’s Alive Moves,’ at the ICA Philadelphia was reviewed in the May/June Issue of Art Forum.
I am thrilled to have receivedthe 2020 Arts and Letters Awards in Art from the The American Academy of Arts and Letters.
I was selected as the 2020 Fellow in the RAIR (Recycled Artist In Residency) Fellowship Residency program. I am excited to create work later this year using industrial waste and recyclable materials from a construction and demolition waste recycling company in northeast Philadelphia.
I was recently awarded a commission to create a new memorial to Dinah, a once-enslaved woman credited with saving Stenton House—a historic landmark—during the Revolutionary War.
Right Here, detail rendering of proposed memorial, Stenton Park, Philadelphia
I was recently awarded a 2019 Pew Fellowship.
I currently have a solo show up at Stockton University (September 4th–November 12th)
I am currently participating in Emanation 2019. This is the third exhibition of contemporary art featuring new works developed and created by non-glass artists.
African American oyster shuckers from Shell Pile, NJ
In February I installed Because Time In this Place Does Not Obey An Order, a solo show at Le Murate, a former convent for cloistered nuns beginning in the 14th century in Florence. By the late 19th century it was converted into a prison until 1985. Now it’s a cultural center/contemporary art center and housing complex. This exhibition was part of Black History Month Florence.
I participated in Cinque Mostre, an annual exhibition of artwork and curatorial projects by the Rome Prize and Italian Fellows.
I participated in Arte in Memoria Biennale. This exhibition is held in the ruins of the Synagogue in Ostia Antica, one of the oldest relics from the Jewish diaspora.
I was recently awarded the 2018-19 Rome Prize and look forward to living and working in Rome beginning this fall.
I am coming to the end of my Horger Artist-in-Residency at Lehigh University where I mounted a solo exhibition in the university’s main gallery. This summer I will install a permanent interactive sculpture on the campus grounds.
Wall (detail), 2017-18
I was recently commissioned to create a public work for Memorial Hall at the University of Kentucky. More on this to come…
Proposal rendering for Memorial Hall’s vestibule in response to a controversial mural by Ann Rice O’Hanlon. Many believe O’Hanlon’s New Deal-era mural sanitizes slavery and its legacy. The hope is that this site-specific installation will instigate a dialogue and renew examination of the complex realities of our history.”
Image of the Ann Rice O’Hanlon mural
This upcoming fall, I will participate in a city-wide public art project called Monument Lab, which will reconsider the function of public monuments in the city.
Proposal rendering for Battle of Germantown Memorial, commission, Vernon Park, Philadelphia.
I am working on a public commission with the City of Philadelphia in Stenton Park, home to the historic Stenton House, Nicetown’s community center and playground. It should open up in early fall.
I recently was awarded a Harpo Foundation Grant.
My book Inbound: Houston is finally here. It includes texts by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Nuit Banai and a conversation with Paul Ramirez Jonas.
I am currently showing a series of photographs in a group show at Dartmouth College.
My solo exhibition at Marso Galería in Mexico City will open April 3rd. I recently participated in the exhibition “flashBlack: the African diasporic impulse in American photography” at the Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art, University of Memphis.
Wonderwheel cemetery, 2013
I am currently participating in the traveling show “Stocked.” The show, which features photographs is traveling to the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), and the Ulrich Museum of Art.
Mojo hardo bread, 2013
This spring I won a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant. CLICK HERE for more information or to visit the Pollock-Krasner Foundation website.
I have been awarded a 2011 fellowship in Crafts/Sculpture from the New York foundation for the Arts. Check out the NYFA website. CLICK HERE for more information.
I am currently participating in the exhibition “Who runs the Space now?” at Ecoh Galeria in Mexico City. This exhibition is a collaboration with Neue Galerie (Switzerland). The exhibition will run through August 7th, 2011. I created both a public work and sculpture for the show.
Traffic barricade with fruit, h. 31 in. w. 57 in. d. 22 in., Cast concrete and fruit, 2011
This past May, I was an artist in residence at the Salina Art Center. I created wall drawings for the first time.
Merry go round, wall drawing, h. 74.5in. x w. 168 in. Charcoal and paint, 2011
I have been awarded the 2010 William H. Johnson Prize. This prize is given annually to an early career African-American artist. Check out the William H. Johnson website. CLICK HERE for more information.
I am currently participating in the international photography exhibition at the World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures in Dakar, Senegal, December 10th-31st. I am showing the photo series “Double Vision” for the first time. World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures Press Release
3 Black Sculptures, 5 in. x 9 in., c-print face mounted with 1/4″ plexi, 2010
I will participate in a three-person show opening October 24th at Hendershot Gallery, NYC–Balancing Act Press Release
Check out this interview I did this past September with Days of Yore–an online site of interviews with visual artists, writers and musicians. Click on link for full interview-Days of Yore Interview
I participated in BITE: A Street Inspired Art and Fashion Exhibition at Third Streaming in Soho, NYC. September 8th through November 6th. Bite Exhibition Press Release–Bite Press Release
Dancer/Danger T-shirt, 2010
NOW OPEN!! ACA FOODS FREE LIBRARY, Hartford, CT. This public work was part of “Rockstone and Bootheel,” an exhibition of contemporary Caribbean art at Real Art Ways. The library was recently profiled in the Caribbean Review of Books, a bimonthly journal–caribbeanreviewofbooks.com.
I installed a functioning library inside ACA Foods market. This exclusively Caribbean library is open to all patrons of the market. The books are organized by category (i.e. literature, history, children) and arranged on shelves alongside the customary products and provisions sold in the store.
This is a trust library—no library card necessary, no proof of residence required, no specific date of return. Customers are allowed to take out one book or several at a time. Borrowers are only asked to return the book(s) when they are finished digesting them.
The hope is for this library to expand what we imagine the “consumables” of a market to be—particularly when that market inadvertently traffics in nostalgia for home. Perhaps it can be a place where we really slow down, browse, and relish the sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and yes, the imperishable produce of my West-Indian heritage.
CATALOG COMING SOON!!
INBOUND: HOUSTON, Fall 2009
INBOUND: HOUSTON is a public art project which took place this past October and November in Houston, Texas. Billboard advertisements were replaced by photographs of the surrounding landscape along the city’s major freeways. A catalog of the project is forthcoming.