Hanes Visiting Artist Lecture Series: Karyn Olivier

100 Hamilton Hall

Karyn Olivier, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago, creates sculptures, installations, and public art. This year, Olivier will unveil a Philadelphia memorial, commemorating more than 5,000 African Americans buried at Bethel Burying Ground. Last year, she participated in the Whitney Biennial (NY, NY), La Trienal at El Museo del Barrio (NY, NY), the Malta Biennale (Valletta, Malta), and Prospect.6 Triennial (New Orleans, LA). In 2024, Olivier also unveiled a memorial honoring a formerly enslaved servant and was selected to create a
public installation in Milwaukee, memorializing Vel R. Phillips, the late politician, attorney, judge, and civil rights activist. In 2023, Olivier
presented her second solo show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. In 2022, Olivier participated in Documenta 15 and installed a permanent commission for Newark Airport’s Terminal A. Olivier has exhibited at the Gwangju and Busan biennials (South Korea), the World Festival of Black Arts and Culture (Dakar, Senegal), The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Whitney Museum of Art, MoMA P.S.1, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, The Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh), SculptureCenter (New York), ICA Watershed Boston, among others. Solo exhibitions include Everything That’s Alive Moves at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia (2020), and A Closer Look at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis (2007). Olivier has received numerous awards, including a 2025 USA Fellowship, a 2020 Anonymous Was a Woman Award, the 2018–2019 Nancy B. Negley Rome Prize, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, a 2019 PEW Fellowship, the New York Foundation for the Arts Award, a Pollock- Krasner Foundation grant, the William H. Johnson Prize, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award, a Creative Capital Foundation grant, and a Harpo Foundation grant. Olivier’s work has been reviewed in ArtForum, The New York Times, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, Art in America, Flash Art, Mousse, The Washington Post, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Frieze, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Hyperallergic, among others. She is a sculpture professor at Tyler School of Art and Architecture.

An endowment established in 1983 through the generosity of Nancy and Robin Hanes supports the Art Department’s Visiting Artist Series. This important program brings both established and emerging artists to campus to discuss their work in public lectures and to offer individual critiques to our M.F.A. students.  The Hanes Visiting Artist series greatly enriches both our academic programs and our outreach to the wider community.  All lectures are free and open to the public.

A weeknight or daytime permit is now required after 5:00 pm on weekdays. No permit is required from 5:00 pm Friday through 7:30 am Monday. A $1.00 one-night pass is available in selected lots. More information can be found HERE.

Artist website: https://www.karynolivier.com/

Contact: Martín Wannam, mwanna@unc.edu