Olek

Use tab to navigate through the menu items. Olek is a two-spirit person; a child of the witches they did not burn; a failed art critic and a self-taught artist. All art is a self-portrait. Fear is a cockblocker of dreams. What is coming is better than what is gone. Art is to the spirit what food is to the body and what sex is to the species. Art is... what keeps spirit alive. They crochet moments so they will last forever. Art and life are inseparable. Olek was born Agata Oleksiak, in 1978, in a communist Poland. They grew up in a place that was very stingy with possibilities and granted them no eccentricities. They felt like they had to yank up their skirt, expose their bruised knees and bolt the hell out of there. Olek graduated from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland with a degree in cultural studies. In New York, they rediscovered their ability to crochet, Holland Cotter described their installation as a tour-de-force, and since then they have started their crocheted madness. Resume sniffers may be pleased to know Olek's work has been exhibited in galleries, museums (Avesta Museum, Sweden; The Brooklyn Museum; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Netherlands; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Urban Nation Museum, Germany; Fluctuart Museum, Paris) and public spaces worldwide and featured in numerous publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, TIME Magazine, Vogue Italia, Newsweek/ Daily Beast, Village Voice, Vibe Magazine, Artinfo, PBS, CNN, CBS, ABC and NBC. They are the recipient of the In Situ Artaq award (France) in 2011, and a grant in 2011 from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) for performance in public spaces, a Han Nefken award, a USArtists International grant supporting performing arts at international festivals, and an Awesome Without Borders Grant (2016), and drag a tail of dance performance sets and costumes too numerous to mention. Olek received the Ruth Mellon Award for Sculpture, was selected for the residency program at ...Read More