Artists

Olivia Erlanger

Press release

For her forthcoming exhibition Fan Fiction at Soft Opening, Olivia Erlanger continues her ongoing research into appliances, presenting four large-scale ceiling fan sculptures whose blades have been altered to resemble butterfly wings. The new works build on Erlanger’s interest in “closed worlds’’, architecture theorist Lydia Kallipoliti’s term for describing man-made, climate-controlled environments that exist to the detriment and obfuscation of a so-called natural world outside. Erlanger has chosen butterfly-wing patterns that represent a phenomenon known as Batesian mimicry, wherein non-poisonous species have evolved to imitate the traits of toxic ones – to avoid being eaten by their predators. For Erlanger, this mimicry complex correlates to strategies of sociopolitical adaptation. In Fan Fiction, the works address this tendency with humour by disguising her sculptures as familiar household commodities. Throughout her practice, Erlanger frequently transforms prosaic and mundane objects and architectures into the fantastic.