Karyn Olivier

Karyn Olivier

Nancy B. Negley Rome Prize
September 10, 2018–July 26, 2019
Profession
Program Head and Associate Professor, Department of Sculpture, Tyler School of Art, Temple University
Project title
Histories Converse
Project description

I plan to study various forms of public art in Rome and its surrounds—talking statues, monuments, piazzas, and ruins. I will identify and concentrate on ten to twenty public works/sites over the eleven-month fellowship and create a proposal or prototype that is in conversation with the original. For each, I will make a model. These models will take different forms—fabricated sculpture, installation, 2D image, prose, or a video piece—and will function as finished artworks. In addition, I will create a book that includes reproductions and documentation of the models and my research. This book of propositions—imagined public art—will feature projects that will likely never be realized. It will function as an art object, journal, recorder, and idiosyncratic map of the Eternal City. I’ll also explore the uphill battle of realizing one of my propositions and create an ephemeral event or temporary work that is in conversation with an original site.