Audio Tour: Olivia Plender

 Olivia Plender speaking about her live work for the Triennial

NARRATOR: On April the 29th, Olivia Plender will present a performance inspired by a television show called “Monitor”, from the 1950s. It was the first British arts programme.

OLIVIA PLENDER: And I wanted to work with that program because for me, doing a project at the Tate is a very heavy context because the Tate is such a kind of huge institution. For me it’s a very authoritative place. so when I was trying to come up with an idea for the performance, I returned to Monitor, because it’s got that sort of very paternalistic tone, where Hugh Weldon, who presents a lot of them, he’s got a very clipped, BBC accent which for me represents the voice of authority. But at the same time, the programs are far more intellectual than you would ever get on television now. So in a way I find it attractive but repulsive. It’s telling the audience “the truth” or “the facts”.

There’s one program that John Schlesinger made in the late ‘50s called Private View. And it’s about four young artists who are having their first London solo show. And they talk very candidly about their feelings, and their new success. And I want to make some kind of performance out of that.

And in the past I made a comic book called The Masterpiece which was looking at the clichés around the art world, and it’s the story of a young artist, and it’s set in the 1960s. A lot of stuff goes horribly wrong. It’s a kind of pulp fiction story, dealing with cinematic clichés about ‘the artist’. Comics I think use a very cinematic language, but it’s like a cheap way of making a film because you just need a pencil and a piece of paper.

NARRATOR: In fact, you can find one of Olivia Plender’s comic books on display nearby. As you look for it…or just linger a while here in the cafe, we invite you to listen to a sound clip from an earlier performance by Plender. Just press the green PLAY button.

Back to Audio Tour