OliviaGlebbeek



	Olivia Glebbeek - I got you under my skin 2007. 9. 6 - 9. 23 I got you under my skin Olivia Glebbeek was born in Korea and adopted by Dutch parents when she was five years old. As her social standing has been acquired through her Dutch nationality, name, language, and education, her relationship with Korea remains as abstract substance, just like lost memories buried deeply in consciousness and hardly identified. Nevertheless, it has been an essential factor that defines her identity like physical characteristics that cannot change. The title of the exhibit, “I Got You Under My Skin” is borrowed from the song sung by Frank Sinatra. The nostalgic love song by an old singer has become a window to Glebbeek’s nostalgia for her lost memories. However, her works are not sentimental love songs about her nostalgia for her motherland. Rather, they are part of the rigorous process of self-exploration for the uniqueness of her own and protection of it while adjusting to external changes and a ritual through which she accepts her past memories. This exhibit at Brain Factory is her first solo show. It is a continuum of what she showed partly during her stay at the National Art Studio Chang-dong last year. The fact that the works created as a journey to her identity are displayed in the very place where she was born may carry quite a significant meaning to her. Glebbeek’s works have focused on beings that entered her life regardless of her will and the process of increasing of these beings that creates unpredictable condition. The coexistence or conflict between the outer world and the inner world and the process of struggle to secure her own space in a strange external environment are the major themes of Glebbeek’s works. The image of wild jungles, ecological gardens and the growing creatures often appears in that context on Glebbeek’s works. The strange-looking fruits in her works remind us of lumps of human desire or some unpredictable results that are created in the process of interaction between the inner and outer human forces. The hunting dog that chases a rabbit signifies its struggle for the realization of desire, and Glebbeek herself becomes the hunting dog and at the same time the rabbit. Such images often emerge in her works in black silhouette as in shadow plays. Glebbeek comments on such images that “Silhouettes are flat. You can project your own character or story in it. You can give it your own depth.” In other words, the silhouette is a subjective form created by an artist, but it is the spectators who, upon seeing the images, interpret them and give them meanings on their own. With various repetitive characters such as plants, rabbits, dogs, and men wearing masks, spectators can make up stories and use them as a kind of role-playing by reflecting their mentality. The mysterious world Glebbeek has embodied looks like a mystic fairy tale or a flamboyant circus and at the same time adds a subtle dimension, like Alice in Wonderland, to her work. The sentiment underlying the background as such is psychological danger, in which the tension between the inner space and the outer space is sustained, and emotional crossing between fear and wonder appears. During this exhibit, the spatial structure of Brain Factory, which is divided into two sections, is utilized as the site that represents the two realms Glebbeek portrays in her works. The tent in the inner space that looks like a small room is a representation of the shelter she pursues or the inner space in which she becomes herself. The space outside the tent implies the outer space, that is, the social world. The outer space is filled with the black silhouette of the images of dogs running to hunt rabbits. As opposed to the aggressive movement of the outer part, the inner space looks static, retrograde, and weak. Installed inside the tent are colorful clothes hanging that show some images took in Seoul, such as young soldiers, high school girls doing shopping, motorbikes running. There are also a variety of soft and tactile materials such as fabrics, cushions, and blankets. This small and tactile inner space is the shelter in which Glebbeek’s own desire is embodied without conflict and the erotic and physical space in which regression into infancy is allowed regardless of the struggling process of achievement in outer world. The interaction and conflict between the inner space and the outer space in Glebbeek’s work is a very important issue. The inner mind always projects its shape into the outer space, the physical force of outer world also affects the inner space. What Glebbeek depicts through the space where the two realms interact can be the metaphor of the way humans survive and live. Through the two spaces, interior and exterior of the tent, Olivia Glebbeek attempts to express human desire to find home, the world of her own, in the process of struggling to adjust to the outer space. The place where the two realms interact is itself a metaphor of life. Glebbeek‘s recent works go in two directions. On the one hand, her interest in the spiritual and psychological space that exists in humans leads to her interest in the ways the private world can communicate with the public space. The project she worked with the mentally-challenged in a mental hospital in the Netherlands in 2006, and the workshop she held with children in the Watermill Center founded by Robert Wilson are part of her interest. On the other hand, she makes objects that can actually be used in everyday life such as T-shirts, blankets, and cushions that imply the concept of her work. The psychological and spiritual realm is highly private, but it is also universal as it exists in all individuals. Glebbeek’s works allow us to expect that human communication through art will be possible at the very space where individualism meets universality. Finally, the following quote is from the letter by Glebbeek, in which she talked about the project she participated with patients in the mental hospital. "The main goal in my work is challenging you to enter your inner world. Your world of longing, passion, conflict and creativity. This inner world we all have. Once you are in touch with it, you can recognize longing, passion, paradox and creativity all around you.” - Lee Eun-Joo (Curator of Brain Factory)

	Olivia Glebbeek Born in Seoul, South Korea Lives and works in Amsterdam, Holland Education 1996-1997 Art Academy Utrecht 1997-2002 Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Painting and drawing department, Amsterdam, Cum Laude graduation 2000-2001 Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Training period at the ceramic Department Solo Exhibition 2007 'I got you under my skin', Brain Factory, Seoul, South Korea Selected Projects and Group Exhibitions 2007 'Impact', project at Kunsthuis Syb, Beetsterzwaag, the Netherlands 2006 'An untroubled conversation', project at The Fifth Season, Artist in residency at psychiatric hospital the W.A. Hoeve, Den Dolder, the Netherlands. ------- 'Bikini in winter', Alternative space Loop, Seoul, South Korea ------- 'Do not feed', Zoo Artis, Amsterdam, the Netherlands ------- 'Storm', Show with Isabelle Duval, the Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem, the Netherlands ------- 'Trauma', The National Art Studio Changdong, Seoul, South Korea ------- 'Foresight', Opra Gallery, Seoul, South Korea 2005 XVI International sculpture symposium Carrara citta Laboratoria, Carrara, Italy ------- 'Quantumvis', Ymuiden, the Netherlands ------- 'So What!', Quarantine Building, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2004 'Homesick', Haarlem, the Netherlands ------- 'This is not a love song', Helmond, the Netherlands 2003 'Staying alive', Haarlem, the Netherlands Grants 2006 Grant from the Funds BKVB 2005 Grant from the Funds BKVB 2004 Grant from the Funds BKVB 2003 Grant from the Funds BKVB Residences 2005 Artist in residence, The National Art Studio Changdong, Seoul, South Korea 2006 Artist in residence, 'The 5th season', at psychiatric institution Willem Arntshoeve in Den Dolder, the Netherlands ------- Gueststudio's Daglicht, Beeldenstorm, Eindhoven, the Netherlands 2007 Summer Program at Watermill Center from Robert Wilson, New York, USA Workshops 2006 'Cake City', art project with teenagers with personality disorder, Den Dolder, the Netherlands 2007 'You and me', childrens workshop at Watermill Center from Robert Wilson, New York, USA E-mail : omglebbeek@hotmail.com