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Moving the Obelisk somewhat absurdly restages this trajectory of displacement and theft. Olivier and a crew dismantled not a stone monolith but a dirt-and-cardboard reimagining of an obelisk made in her Rome studio. They packed the components and documented their transit and restaging here in Philadelphia. In this gesture, Olivier diminishes the awe and stature accorded to a solid mass of stone to focus on the actions that surround the history of the form: conquering, dismantling, transporting, reassembling. Through such displacements, Olivier’s sculptures remind us (as might a casual walk in Rome) that civic space accrues through the weight of peoples, and that citizenship is built of absences — if we pause to look again.
ICA
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