"Fool for Thought"
On View: Nov. 21 - March 3, 2017
Pat Oleszko
Hadassah-Brandeis Institute
Postcard image: Pat Oleszko, "Odds at Sea Bahian Odyssey," 2009 performance and film, Sacatar Foundation, Itaparica, Brazil
Performance artist Pat Oleszko makes a spectacle of herself — and doesn’t mind if you laugh. With elaborate handmade costumes and props, she utilizes the body as armature for ideas in an array of lampoons that call her audience to action. From the personal to the political, her performances and installations ceremoniously exorcize through humor. Hoisting an enormous burning bra on the exterior of the Women’s Studies Research Center, the exhibition "Fool for Thought" highlights costumes and performances from a wild variety of events including Hello Folly: The Floes & Cons of Arctic Drilling, Oldilocks and the Bewares, Stalking Walking Topiary and The Pat and the Hats. Oleszko, self-identified as the Fool in question and the questioning Fool, fans the flames with rousing absurdity and maintains that she who laughs, lasts.
