Olivia Plender

Works * CV * Texts and press

Exhibitions and events:
Nascent States

 
 

Olivia Plender, Self-direction Lounge, 2013
installation
installation view, Henie Onstad Kunstenter
PLE036

 
 

Olivia Plender, Progress, 2010
drawing, ink on paper, 10*29x21cm
PLE003

 
 

Olivia Plender, How Paul’s Penny Became a Pound, 2012
sculpture, painted fabric banner, 250x150cm
installation view, MK Gallery
PLE014

“Then was Christian in great distress, and knew not what to do; for he wanted that which used to relieve him, and that which should have been his pass into the Celestial City… Sometimes he sighed, sometimes he wept, and oftentimes he chid himself for being so foolish to fall asleep in that place, which was erected only for a little refreshment for his weariness… He went thus till he came again within sight of the Arbor where he sat and slept; but that sight renewed his sorrow the more, by bringing again, even afresh, his evil of sleeping into his mind. Thus therefore he now went on bewailing his sinful sleep, saying, O wretched man that I am, that I should sleep in the daytime!” Text from Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan (1678)

 
 

Olivia Plender, The Truth Itself Speaks Through Me, 2012
sculpture, MDF, card, plaster, acrylic paint, flocking
PLE013

 
 

Olivia Plender, Set Sail for the Levant, A Board Game About Debt (or a social satire), 2007
detail
PLE008

'Empire City - The World on One Street' is an architectural model which reconstructs the site of the British Empire exhibition of 1924 and combines it with elements drawn from Pilgrim’s Progress.

 
 

Olivia Plender, Empire City - The World on One Street, 2009
sculpture, MDF, card, plaster, acrylic paint, flocking
PLE012

 
 

Olivia Plender, Stockholm Duck House: Proposed Monument to British Parliamentary Corruption, Circa 2009, 2012
sculpture, wood, lead, paint
PLE004

 
 

Olivia Plender, Hortus Conclusus (Enclosed Garden), 2012
installation, paint, wood, tape
installation view, MK Gallery
PLE005

'Open Forum' re-creates a 1970s style TV studio and features a large stage, audience 'conversation pit', television monitors and a world map. The installation contains archive material related to experimental art education in the UK including The Open University’s interdisciplinary Art and Environment Course.

 
 

Olivia Plender, Open Forum, 2012
installation
installation view, Arnolfini, Bristol
PLE011

 
 

Olivia Plender, Google Office, 2010-2012
installation
installation view, Taipei Biennial
PLE016

 
 

Olivia Plender, Are Dreams Hallucinations During Sleep or Hallucinations Waking Dreams?, 2011
video, two-channel video installation
video still
PLE033

 
 

Olivia Plender, The Thames Whale, 2009
drawing, ink on paper, 24x29.7cm
PLE034

 
 

Olivia Plender, Machine Shall be the Slave of Man but We Will Not Slave for the Machine, 2006-07
installation, mixed media, work station, video, drawings, fabric costumes, banner, diorama
installation view, Tate Triennial
PLE020

 
 

Olivia Plender, Ken Russell in Conversation with Olivia Plender, 2007
installation, mixed media installation, video, props, furniture
PLE025

 
 

Olivia Plender, A Stellar Key to the Summerland, 2007
drawing, ink on paper, 2*21x29cm
PLE018

'Monitor' is a reconstruction of 'Private View', a television programme screened in 1960 as part of the BBC’s original arts series. It is intended as a self-reflexive gesture, questioning the role of artists and art institutions within society.

 
 

Olivia Plender, Monitor, 2006
performance
performance installation view, Tate Britain, photo Christian McDonald
PLE024

Set in an imaginary London avant-garde of the past, this comic series interrogates the popular myths and clichés surrounding Bohemianism and the 'genius' figure. The main character is Nick, an unrecognised painter trying to negotiate his way to success in the stifling atmosphere of the swinging 1960s.

 
 

Olivia Plender, The Masterpiece, issue 1, Strange Adventures, 2001-06
drawing, serial graphic novel
PLE026