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Galleria Laura Pecci is featuring the London-based Dutch video artist
Saskia Olde Wolbers (1972, Breda, The Netherlands) for her first solo
show in Italy.
Saskia Olde Wolbers’
narrative videos are based on actual dramatic events taken by the
artist from newspapers and tabloids.
The
construction of a large dike, preceding the flooding of an entire
province in China, is the inspiration for Kilowatt
Dynasty (2000). Here, the narrator is a Chinese girl
telling the story of her future conception that will come to pass in
2016, involving an environmental activist and his female hostage, a
saleswoman for the local up-scale home shopping network. The future
foetus tells her story while the camera floats in a slimy dream world
reminiscent of the womb.
Day
Glo (1999) tells the tale of a poor Andalusian gardener
that decides to return to his place of birth and invest his savings in
setting up a futuristic amusement park. He then discovers that his
beloved wife has fallen in love with a virtual image of him as a youth.
Saskia
Olde Wolbers
has a taste for stories where the characters become victims of their
own imagination and end up not being able to tell the difference
between their dreams and the reality
In
her latest video, the artist again explores this imaginary world, now
using a more sophisticated technique.
This
time, the video is about the “syndrome of phantastic pseudology”,
a psychological illness that brings people to construct their entire
world out of fantasy elements. The story is based on the amazing life
of a man that pretended to be a doctor of the World Health
Organization in Geneva for 18 years, while in reality he spent days on
end in highway restaurants and airport hotels, reading travel guides
on the countries he pretended to visit. The voice is that of his
lover, who not only discovers that her boyfriend is a phony physician,
but that his wife and children are also nonexistent…
The
images in this video function as a kind of “optical lie detector”,
and they are constructed by dipping thin metal structures into oil
paint floating on the surface of water.
The effect is that of spaces and objects with vibrant and shiny
surfaces that appear and disappear continuously. The scenography is so
perfect that they seem to be computer-drawn. However, like in all
other Olde Wolbers’ videos, the sets are hand-built from recycled
materials.
Saskia
Olde Wolbers,
1972, The Netherlands, London-based
Selection
of solo shows:
2000
Mindset,
Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam; Herold, Bremen.
Selection
of group shows:
2002
Prix
de Rome film & video, The Netherlands; 2001 Casino
2001; SMAK, Gent, Bergium;Tirana
Biennale, Tirana, Albania; Nuove
Scene dell’Olanda, Castello di Rivoli, Italy; Echt,
Kunstraum Walcheturm, Zurich; 2000 Institut d’Art Contemporain,
Geneva; I’m
Really Sorry, Luciano Inga-Pin (curator Gigiotto Del
Vecchio), Milan; 1999 New
Work UK, Chisenhale, London;
The Land Beyond the Blue, The Approach, London.
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