Animal Nature
Artist Rune Olsen talks today about his work in The Exquisite Line
Click on the slide show above to listen to Rune Olsen talk about his work and to see images from The Exquisite Line.
Rune Olsen’s art takes Animal Planet intimacy to another level, with his life-size sculptures of animals frozen mid-fight in the Sherman Gallery’s latest group installation, The Exquisite Line.
Olsen will speak about the show, which is at the gallery through October 25, today, October 7, at 12:30 p.m. at the College of Fine Arts. He will also discuss his exhibition The Sex Life of Animals, which depicts the ways animals engage in sex, currently at New York’s Museum of Sex.
In The Exquisite Line, Olsen shows how humans use animals to fulfill a craving for violence. He renders his masking tape sculptures of cockfights and dangling rats from photographs and film, making his animals as lifelike as possible.
His work is displayed with drawings and works on paper by contemporary artists Gary Batty, Leona Christie, Thomas Duncan, Ledelle Moe, Stas Orlovski, Casey Jex Smith, and Brent Steen. Curated by Lynne Cooney, CFA school of visual arts exhibitions director, the show explores the exquisite — notions of delicacy, beauty, and pain — through the pieces in the exhibition.
“I sort of trace the conceptual concerns of what I read, and when you look back you can see how a lot of these pieces come into existence,” Olsen says. “A lot of times you’re not able to realize ideas immediately — they take time to come to fruition.”
The Exquisite Line runs through Saturday, October 25, at the Sherman Gallery in the George Sherman Union, 775 Commonwealth Ave. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. For more information, call 617-358-0295. Olsen’s gallery talk is at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 7, in Room 500 in the College of Fine Arts, 855 Commonwealth Ave.
Kimberly Cornuelle can be reached at kcornuel@bu.edu.
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