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November 26, 2024 – Review
Olivia Erlanger’s “Fan Fiction”
Caroline Elbaor
Four sculptures in the form of ceiling fans hang suspended in an otherwise empty gallery. These works—all dated 2024 and presented against the fluorescent lighting, bright-white walls, and cement flooring of a traditional white cube—are fully enmeshed in the architecture, resulting in an exhibition with all the hallmarks of aesthetic minimalism arranged for the sake of affect. The intended sense is of monotony. This is achieved by the simplistic setup and, more importantly, evokes the mundanity of domesticity that defines much of Erlanger’s practice across plays, films, installations, and sculptures.
Here, each sculpture is partially comprised of various home appliances—shower curtain rods, kitchen utensil holders, lamp cords, and wastepaper bins—that make up the ostensible fans, the blades of which are moulded into the shape of butterfly wings. These appliances reference her most recent short video, Appliance (2024), which debuted earlier this year in the American artist’s first extensive institutional solo exhibition in the US, at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. It is also screening here, in the gallery’s adjacent viewing room. Consistent with Erlanger’s use of science fiction and horror in earlier works to explore the psychology underpinning the idea of home, she here depicts absurd situations—the arm of a contractor …