B. Ingrid Olson
It's a strange time in our universe - chaos and tumult, and yet, as always, fall turns to winter, and the holiday season arrives without warning. And with the season, we find ourselves seeking out friends and family who we love and respect, and that is what our journal has always been about - featuring women that inspire and amaze us in big and small ways. We have the privilege to call Ingrid Olson a friend, and we recently had some time in her studio to talk about her art practice and life outside of the studio.
Heiji: I first encountered your work at the Renaissance Society in 2017 - I loved the way you captured yourself through the lens and created sculpture, sometimes around the image, and the particular way you had some of your sculptures hanging at waist level. Capturing the body and interacting with the body in a way that treated it like fragments of architecture. Decoupling the body from “body” as we perceive it. For me it was very feminist, and I loved it. What is your relationship to self portraits in general and in an art historical sense?
Ingrid: While it might seem like splitting hairs, I actually don't think about my work as self-portraiture. Even though I do use my body in my photographic work, I am more often responding to architectural spaces and compositional forms from an embodied perspective. I approach my body as a material with which to make images, capturing fragments of my own body as a marker of occupied space. I understand self portraiture as something more concerned with psychological representation; I see self portraits as related to a person's character, biography, spirit, or at very least a portrayal of their likeness. In opposition, my work uses my body, viewer's bodies, architectural bodies, and textual bodies to engage with ideas like presence, situation and even purposeful dislocation, which are more relational concerns. I am affecting some kind of embodied, perspective-shifting, proprioceptive connection between bodies and spaces. However funny it may sound, I rarely, if at all, think about persona, or myself as a self as I make work.
H: Since then, you’ve had so many great solo shows around the world including VIENNA Seccession, the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard, and in Iceland at i8. Can you tell me some favorite moments from any of these?
I: My most recent (and still current) exhibition at i8 Grandi in Reykjavik has provided an exciting turn in the way that I am approaching my practice and exhibition-making. My gallery extended an invitation to make a year-long exhibition, which could change as much as I wanted. This sounded both exciting and intimidating. Now, as I approach the last changes to the exhibition as it comes to an end in December, I have realized that many of the anxieties related to making work and putting up a show are invisible and totally self-fortified. This show has helped me to reframe my understanding of "finished" as well as prompting some new ongoing, continuous artworks. I think there has been a release of control in some ways, so that, rather than remaining fixed, an artwork, exhibition, or even my entire art-practice can become a continuum with no stoppages.
H: What is your relationship with Chicago? Why is this the right place for you to make art in?
I: At this time, my relationship is complex. I have loved it here for so long, and I still do. But, I am starting to crave more nature in my day to day life. But, in terms of making work, I really can't think of a better place. My studio is big and affordable, the community of artists is really special, and there is just enough going on in terms of museums, galleries, music and performances so that it feels like there is always something to do, but not so much that I feel distracted by it.
H: As you know, our line, Jeune Otte, is very focused on sustainability - producing our collections locally in Chicago and making sure we are creating as little new waste (by using dead stock and vintage fabrics), are there ways that you try to be sustainable in your art?
I: Art is often not a very green endeavor, in terms of materials and processes used to make things, however, I do find that there are certain things that feel like they make a dent in the waste cycle. I often use found objects in my work that I find as I walk, discarded on the street, in dumpsters or alleys. Last year I started collecting discarded styrofoam to use as molds for ceramic work. Using the styrofoam, at least one more time, if not many times, feels satisfying. And in general, in the studio, I try to focus on the reliable two of the 'three R's': reuse and reduce. As we now know, recycling is a bit of a shot in the dark, in terms of whether our yogurt containers are actually being recycled by the city, so any material that might wind up in a landfill or even in the recycling bin, I usually try to reuse as many times as possible.
H: After hours, what are you into these days? Video series, films, books, we would love to know what is grabbing your attention.
I: I am not a late night person, so my after hours are more like pre-hours. I get up early to walk. I frequently go to breakfast at Doma Cafe or Lula Cafe and I've also been going to the library at the Poetry Foundation quite a bit. It is the most beautiful and underused room. Most recently, I have been in a deep dive with the poet Sawako Nakayasu. She is very serious, and writes incredibly moving poems, but also I find myself laughing out loud at some of her work too. That is a great combination to me, someone who allows blips or rays of humor to shine through in otherwise potentially serious, contemplative work.
Current Exhibitions:
Solo Exhibition: Cast of Mind
i8 GRANDI , The Marshall House. Grandagarður 20, 101 Reykjavik Iceland
Group Show: Descending the Staircase
MCA Chicago, 220 E Chicago Ave, Chicago IL
Publications:
Monograph from the Carpenter CEnter Exhibit:
B. Ingrid Olson: History Mother, Little Sister
MOnograph from Seccession Solo Show:
Ingrid Wearing Emily Cotton Button Up and Annabelle Wool Pants Left, previous image wearing Jen Top and Reed Wool Pants
photography by Noah Sheldon