News Release
Exhibition at MK Gallery
Olivia Plender: Rise Early, Be Industrious
20 April – 17 Jun 2012
Preview: Thursday 19 April 6-10pm
Admission free
Olivia Plender, Newsroom (2008), installation view from The Greenroom: Reconsidering the
Documentary and Contemporary Art, Hessel Museum, CCS Bard, New York. Image © the artist.
This spring, MK Gallery presents Rise Early, Be Industrious the first survey exhibition by
British artist Olivia Plender, co-produced with Arnolfini, Bristol and Centre for Contemporary
Arts, Glasgow. Characterised as a ‘museum of communication’, four room-sized
installations trace a line between a selection of Plender’s past projects, focussing on
historical and contemporary forms of communication and education. Plender’s researchbased practice explores numerous educational models, including educational games, world
fairs, television and the internet, looking at how attitudes towards education have evolved
over time. She also questions how official historical narratives are constructed, looking at
the hierarchies behind the ‘voice of authority’ that is traditionally produced by educational
institutions within the public sphere, such as the museum, the academy, the national library
and the media.
The Cube Gallery presents the installation Words and Laws (Whose Shoulder to Which
Wheel?) which revolves around games, architecture and politics. This room includes
several toys encouraging public participation, such as the board game Set Sail for the
Levant (based on a sixteenth century original) and an architectural toy (based on a
nineteenth century model developed by German educational reformer Friedrich Froebel)
inviting visitors to assemble civic buildings from wooden blocks. It also presents a newly
commissioned hanging mobile and various allegorical and satirical objects, including a
wicker beehive (symbolic in the Victorian period of the perfect industrious society) and a
Stockholm Duck House (a replica of a duck house which became the media’s symbol for
the MPs’ expenses scandal in 2009).
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The New Jerusalem installation in the Middle Gallery explores the relations between
labour, economy and religion. A new model made by Plender represents a scene from
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the most widely-read book in the UK after the bible
between the seventeenth and early twentieth centuries. This publication was instrumental
in educating new factory workers of the industrial revolution, stating that the only route to
paradise was through hard work. Another, earlier, model is related to the British Empire
exhibition of 1924 and how citizens were educated about the economic relations within the
Empire, offering a precedent for today’s leisure and tourism industries. The installation
also includes two new banners: Britannia Receiving her Newest Institution, an image of
Britannia holding Selfridges Department Store; and How Paul’s Penny Became a Pound,
based on a nineteenth century book that taught children the value of saving money.
The Long Gallery re-creates a 1970s style TV studio titled Open Forum. While offering a
platform for further discussion, Plender uses this installation to consider mass education
and the Reithian idea of television as a ‘common culture’. The installation contains
research related to experimental art education in the UK including archive material from
the MK-based Open University’s controversial, interdisciplinary Art and Environment
course. Begun in 1976, the influential course’s chief agenda was to rethink the relation
between art and society, leading to the Art and Social context course at Dartington
College (1978-85) and also influencing Environmental Arts at Glasgow School of Art.
Finally, MK Gallery’s Foyer is transformed into an Entrepreneurial Garden that imitates a
Google style working environment with relaxed seating, a coffee machine, plants, table
football and basketball hoop, along with motivational prints. This installation seeks to
explore how distinctions between work and leisure, public and private have been
collapsed in recent times. Plender draws parallels between Google’s stated mission to
‘organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful’ with the
claims to universality of the national library, or enlightenment museum, to ask what kind of
knowledge and information is privileged by these different frameworks?
With its strong architectural dimension, involving the construction of platforms and
architectural models and a deliberate emphasis on play and pedagogical, game-like
structures, the exhibition invites visitors to participate and ‘perform’ while considering how
social roles and models of society have been constructed over the last few hundred years.
Olivia Plender: Rise Early, Be Industrious, is an exhibition in three episodes presented
in association with Arnolfini, Bristol and Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow. The
exhibition will evolve over the three galleries, with different works included at each venue.
Notes to Editors
About the Artist
Olivia Plender (b.1977) lives and works in Berlin and has exhibited worldwide. Her
research-based practice varies from graphic novels to performance, video and installation.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Aadieu Adieu Apa (2009), Gasworks, London;
Information, Education, Entertainment (2007), Marabouparken, Stockholm and The Folly
of Man Exposed or the World Turned Upside Down (2006) at Frankfurter Kunstverein,
Frankfurt. Selected group exhibitions include: British Art Show 7 (2011), Nottingham
Contemporary, Nottingham and Hayward Gallery, London; Newspeak: British Art Now,
Saatchi Gallery, London (2011); Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan (2010);
Altermodern: Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London, (2009); Art Now Live, (2007) Tate
Britain, London (performance) ; Athens Biennial: How to Endure, Athens, Greece (2007);
Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London, (2006); Busan Biennial, Busan, South Korea (2006);
BMW - 1X Baltic Triennale of International Art, CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania (2005); Romantic
Detachment, PS1/ MoMA, New York, USA (2004).
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Publication
An exhibition catalogue, co-produced by MK Gallery, Arnolfini and Centre for
Contemporary Arts will incorporate installation documentation from the three venues,
alongside research material and be published later this year.
Related Events
The exhibition is accompanied by talks, tours, films and family events, including:
In Conversation
Saturday 9 June, 3pm, free
Olivia Plender discusses the themes and ideas behind her work.
Pre-book online or at the Information Desk.
See website for full event listings
www.mkgallery.org/events
Exhibition Dates
MK Gallery, Milton Keynes
Arnolfini, Bristol
Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
20 April – 17 Jun 2012
14 July – 9 September 2012
13 October – 15 December 2012
MK Gallery
900 Midsummer Boulevard, Central Milton Keynes, MK9 3QA.
Open Tuesday–Friday 12–8pm, Saturday 11am–8pm, Sunday 11am–5pm.
Admission is free. www.mkgallery.org
Exhibition Supporters
Exhibition generously supported by Milton Keynes Museum. With thanks to The Open
University. Olivia Plender has received support from the National Lottery through Arts
Council England.
MK Gallery Supporters
MK Gallery receives core funding from Milton Keynes Council and Arts Council England
South East.
Press information
For press interviews, information or images please contact: Katharine Sorensen,
Communications Director, MK Gallery.
T: +44 (0)1908 558318 / E: ksorensen@mkgallery.org
Ends / Date of issue: 19 April 2012
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