Olga Balema

Trautwein Herleth is pleased present Rot, the first solo exhibition at the gallery by New York based sculptor Olga Balema (b. 1984, Lviv, Ukraine). The exhibition brings together newly made sculptures with counterparts from the same series that were first exhibited in 2014.

The works in the exhibition are made of new and old PVC that has been welded into rectangular shapes, water, steel and other materials that, together, continuously change appearance. The sculptures also continue to be reworked due to pragmatic concerns, winding up appearing ambiguous in form. A moving forward and backward in a timeline, shapes growing and contracting, loosing clarity and transparency.

As inherently durational or ‘time-based’ works, they proceed from a starting cue without further intervention, like an actor placed in front of the camera with no script and no stage direction, or a camera shutter left open for minutes, hours or years. An organizing framework repeats across the series, but the results differ.

Balema’s sculptural language has long been engaged with animation of objects by time. Her works are repetitive, iterative and diversionary, looping back on themselves and redirecting attention to the architectures and audience that surround them.