Raffaella della Olga- Typescripts

Raffaella della Olga uses prepared typewriters and multicolor ink ribbons on a range of materials—from tracing paper to photo paper to sandpaper—to make unique artist’s books, each addressed to a different conceptual or technical problem. Della Olga (b. 1967, Cisano Bergamasco, IT; lives and works in Paris and Haute-Isle, FR) worked as a criminal defense attorney before becoming an artist. Seeking refuge from the wordiness of her former life, della Olga modifies her machines to efface recognizable signs, producing instead an abstract language of form and color, texture and rhythm. The artist’s typescripts join the mechanical and the manual, expressing gesture through the machine, as she drags and smears her ink ribbons and inserts textiles in the typewriter carriage, conveying their texture as text. By using typewriters to make books, della Olga transforms both technologies in the process.

This exhibition, the artist’s first museum solo show, will assemble della Olga’s books, typed paintings, and cut fabric works. It will be accompanied by rare and artist’s books from the Clark Art Institute library, spanning the late 19th century to the present, which reflect the typewriter’s still vivid creative potential. The exhibition catalogue is designed by Three Star Books in Paris and published by the Clark and Yale University Press.

Raffaella della Olga: Typescripts is organized by the Clark Art Institute and curated by Robert Wiesenberger, curator of contemporary projects.

Major funding for Raffaella della Olga: Typescripts is provided by the Edward and Maureen Fennessy Bousa Fund for Contemporary Projects and Dena M. Hardymon, with additional support from Katherine and Frank Martucci. Generous support for the catalogue is provided by Michael Alper and Bruce Moore, with additional support from Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip Aarons.

T32 - 2021. Typewritten with carbon paper on tracing paper and graph paper, with polyester cover, 11 ¾ x 16 ½ in. (29.7 x 42 cm). Special Collections, Center for Curatorial Studies Library & Archives, Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, NY.

https://www.clarkart.edu/exhibition/detail/raffaella-della-olga-typescripts