Guests become participants in art and rip up their diet books at The Great Rip Up at River’s Edge Gallery.
Art enthusiasts filled River’s Edge Gallery Friday night despite freezing temperatures to attend the opening of Brenda Oelbaum’s display, “My New Year’s Revolution.”
Oelbaum celebrated the opening by hosting The Great Rip Up, an event for guests to bring diet books and rip them up.
Oelbaum will use the ripped pages to make a new Venus.
Guests were invited to write down their own new year’s revolutions or comments on paper and hang them on gallery walls.
Irina Haralambis, a photography student at Wayne State University, saw the Willendorf Project installed in the River’s Edge Gallery window on her way to work at Bella Donna’s in downtown Wyandotte.
She recently learned about the Venus of Willendorf statue in art history class, and Oelbaum’s Venuses in the gallery window caught her eye. She said Oelbaum’s display is incredible. Haralambis explored the gallery and spent the majority of her night participating in The Great Rip Up.
Haralambis said ripping up diet books felt empowering.
“I feel like I’m empowering myself and any woman who has felt self-conscious.” Haralambis said. “It takes a lot to feel comfortable with yourself. I still struggle with it.”
Several members of Women’s Caucus for Art attended the opening, including Oelbaum’s friend, Margaret Parker of Ann Arbor.
Parker attended a show in August at River’s Edge Gallery and said she thought it was a pretty cool place with lots of energy and people coming in.
“I think it’s great to have a gallery that encourages people to do out-there and wild things in their front window,” Parker said.
Parker spent time ripping diet books at the opening.
“I think it’s amazing to do a project that invited people to participate,” she said.
Parker said the Willendorf Project is fantastic and has loved watching it grow. She said Oelbaum has a great sense of humor, which has helped her work reach audiences while tackling very serious subjects.
Gallery owner Patt Slack was pleased with the opening and The Great Rip Up.
“I thought it was really good.” Slack said. “I really enjoyed people’s reaction to interaction. People want to be part of it.”
Amanda Levitt, founder of Love Your Body Detroit, came to the opening to experience the revolution and support fat activism.
“People deserve the fundamental right to do what you want with your body,” she said. “Fat rights help all people”.
Eliza Neuman, a Wyandotte native visiting from Seattle, came in to the gallery specifically to see “My New Year’s Revolution.”
“I’m totally into the celebration of the anti-anorexic image,” Neuman said.
Oelbaum said she enjoyed meeting people she did not know and making connections with them and other members of the Women’s Caucus for Art. She said the gallery did a wonderful job promoting the event and she was glad people got into ripping up diet books.
“It was a blast,” Oelbaum said.
Oelbaum recently found out the Willendorf Project has been invited to the Dirty Show in Detroit in February.
She was initially hesitant because her statement with her nude picture wasn’t meant to be seen as dirty.
The more Oelbaum thought about it, she said the invite was justified. She said, “The diet industry is a dirty industry.”
You can experience “My New Year’s Revolution” now through Feb. 18 at River’s Edge Gallery.
You may also see the Willendorf Project at the Dirty Show from Feb. 11-19 at Bert’s Warehouse in Eastern Market in Detroit
Artist Starts a New Year’s Revolution
An eye-catching display devoted to ditching the dieting trend is in the Biddle Avenue window of River’s Edge Gallery.
By Melissa Ptak Moline
Rather than make a New Year’s resolution, artist Brenda Oelbaum is starting a revolution.
Oelbaum spent three days assembling the Willendorf Project in the front window of River’s Edge Gallery. She hopes the display, titled “My New Year’s Revolution,” inspires viewers to skip resolutions this year.
“When you fight who you are supposed to be, you make yourself worse,” she said.
In this installation, Oelbaum uses thousands of donated diet books, her papier-mâché Venuses and words painted in red on the window as props. The centerpiece of the display is the life-sized photo of Oelbaum posing nude, using nothing but diet books for modesty.
Oelbaum says the installation is not about her or her nudity. But rather, it’s about getting people to think and talk about the diet industry, she said.
“Look at this huge industry, see how big it is,” she said. “See how much time we invest in this industry that doesn’t do what it promises.”
The Venus sculptures are fashioned completely out of pages from diet books written by authors such as Jane Fonda, Dr. Phil and Richard Simmons. Oelbaum doesn’t have a favorite Venus, but says most people favor the Venus made of Jane Fonda diet book pages.
Gallery owner Patt Slack agrees, saying the Jane Fonda papier-mâché Venus is her favorite part of the display, noting the leg warmers. Slack also favors the Jane Fonda Venus because, she says, “I know what she has been through.”
The Willendorf Project is installation art, something that River’s Edge Gallery hasn’t displayed to this extent before.
“A lot of people think we’ve turned into a book store,” Slack said. “People aren’t used to installation art. It’s a really new concept to main street.”
Slack has owned River’s Edge Gallery for 30 years and says she has had more reaction from this installation than any other display.
The inspiration for the Willendorf Project came to Oelbaum 10 years ago when she saw a weight loss commercial that used an image of the sculpture, Venus of Willendorf. Oelbaum felt the sculpture, which is traditionally a symbol of fertility, was used as a visual image to hurt women and found it offensive.
“We need to be more accepting that people come in different shapes and sizes,” she said. “It’s so easy to flip and doubt yourself when the world is telling you you’re wrong.”
Five years ago, she began collecting donated diet books. By the fall of 2007, the diet books filled her studio, reaching all the way to the ceiling. Oelbaum posed nude with the collection of books for the photo that later became part of the Willendorf Project.
In May 2008, The Willendorf project debuted at a Women’s Caucus for Art exhibition at the University of Michigan that focused on women’s health.
Slack and Oelbaum met through the art caucus and agree they had an immediate mutual love for each other.
“When I met her, I thought, ‘This woman is a genius and I must have part of her,'” Slack said. “She was doing something different and enlightening and wonderful.”
Both Slack and Oelbaum thought placing an emphasis on revolution rather than resolution was a perfect theme to start the New Year. Slack said other artists in her gallery have been inspired by the revolution and are revolting through their own art.
“It’s an experience,” Slack said. “People are supposed to talk about it. It opens the door to talking about art.”
Oelbaum’s ultimate vision for the Willendorf Project is creating a maze with paths representing different eating disorders. She wants to include an audio aspect to the project with headphones guiding people on an eating disorder journey.
While Oelbaum says people could buy pieces of “My New Year’s Revolution,” the cost per piece would be pretty steep as they are part of a project. Other pieces of her work, titled “In Emergency Break Glass,” are for sale at the gallery.
How does Oelbaum feel about Wyandotte?
“I like it,” she said. “I love the gallery. There is so much to see. You see something new every time you go in. It is like a visual orgasm. Everyone who comes in is a friend and Patt is so warm.”
“My New Year’s Revolution” officially opens Friday. Oelbaum plans to celebrate the opening by hosting “The Great Rip Up,” where guests are invited to bring diet books to rip up. The ripped pages will be part of a new creation, an Oelbaum Venus.
The opening coincides with Wyandotte’s Third Friday celebration, and the gallery will be serving refreshments.
You can witness the revolution in person now until Feb. 18 at River’s Edge Gallery
It’s really great to be understood!!! thanks again Melissa…you rock!!! and SPARKLE!!!
Follow up article
Guests become participants in art and rip up their diet books at The Great Rip Up at River’s Edge Gallery.
Art enthusiasts filled River’s Edge Gallery Friday night despite freezing temperatures to attend the opening of Brenda Oelbaum’s display, “My New Year’s Revolution.”
Oelbaum celebrated the opening by hosting The Great Rip Up, an event for guests to bring diet books and rip them up.
Oelbaum will use the ripped pages to make a new Venus.
Guests were invited to write down their own new year’s revolutions or comments on paper and hang them on gallery walls.
Irina Haralambis, a photography student at Wayne State University, saw the Willendorf Project installed in the River’s Edge Gallery window on her way to work at Bella Donna’s in downtown Wyandotte.
She recently learned about the Venus of Willendorf statue in art history class, and Oelbaum’s Venuses in the gallery window caught her eye. She said Oelbaum’s display is incredible. Haralambis explored the gallery and spent the majority of her night participating in The Great Rip Up.
Haralambis said ripping up diet books felt empowering.
“I feel like I’m empowering myself and any woman who has felt self-conscious.” Haralambis said. “It takes a lot to feel comfortable with yourself. I still struggle with it.”
Several members of Women’s Caucus for Art attended the opening, including Oelbaum’s friend, Margaret Parker of Ann Arbor.
Parker attended a show in August at River’s Edge Gallery and said she thought it was a pretty cool place with lots of energy and people coming in.
“I think it’s great to have a gallery that encourages people to do out-there and wild things in their front window,” Parker said.
Parker spent time ripping diet books at the opening.
“I think it’s amazing to do a project that invited people to participate,” she said.
Parker said the Willendorf Project is fantastic and has loved watching it grow. She said Oelbaum has a great sense of humor, which has helped her work reach audiences while tackling very serious subjects.
Gallery owner Patt Slack was pleased with the opening and The Great Rip Up.
“I thought it was really good.” Slack said. “I really enjoyed people’s reaction to interaction. People want to be part of it.”
Amanda Levitt, founder of Love Your Body Detroit, came to the opening to experience the revolution and support fat activism.
“People deserve the fundamental right to do what you want with your body,” she said. “Fat rights help all people”.
Eliza Neuman, a Wyandotte native visiting from Seattle, came in to the gallery specifically to see “My New Year’s Revolution.”
“I’m totally into the celebration of the anti-anorexic image,” Neuman said.
Oelbaum said she enjoyed meeting people she did not know and making connections with them and other members of the Women’s Caucus for Art. She said the gallery did a wonderful job promoting the event and she was glad people got into ripping up diet books.
“It was a blast,” Oelbaum said.
Oelbaum recently found out the Willendorf Project has been invited to the Dirty Show in Detroit in February.
She was initially hesitant because her statement with her nude picture wasn’t meant to be seen as dirty.
The more Oelbaum thought about it, she said the invite was justified. She said, “The diet industry is a dirty industry.”
You can experience “My New Year’s Revolution” now through Feb. 18 at River’s Edge Gallery.
You may also see the Willendorf Project at the Dirty Show from Feb. 11-19 at Bert’s Warehouse in Eastern Market in Detroit.
I have some great press about the Venus Project being up at the River’s Edge Gallery in Wyandotte, MI and I keep thinking I have added it to my blog and yet I can’t find it. This is making me nuts. I guess if I updated this blasted thing more often I would eventually figure out what the heck I was doing. But in the mean time I will try yet again. Oh well I guess I will just copy and paste. Awesome I think it worked…wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
The News Herald (thenewsherald.com), The Voice of Downriver
Entertainment
Friday, January 14, 2011
New Year’s Resolutions have taken on a different look in River’s Edge Gallery’s front window in downtown Wyandotte.
That’s where the Willendorf Project, a large-scale installation by artist Brenda Oelbaum, is displayed.
The three-dimensional work is a physical and visual commentary on the U.S. government’s “War on Obesity” and the multibillion-dollar diet industry.
Words such as “Revolution” and “Don’t Diet” painted in red by the artist on the window punctuate the message.
Oelbaum, an Ann Arbor resident, was inspired by a Stone Age sculpture of a naked obese woman named the Venus of Willendorf.
It is made of limestone and covered with red ochre. Historically, this little statue has been considered a Venus or fertility symbol.
When Oelbaum saw it in a diet commercial about 10 years ago, she realized that the simple image of a Venus had been distorted into “something ugly and something women should fear; another tool for self-loathing.”
“I am obese,” she said. “I believe very strongly that my attempts to control my size throughout my life have brought me to this shape.
“I have suffered every eating disorder known to man — and some that are only now being classified as such.
“Years of dieting and following external rules around my food intake have created such havoc in my life that it is taking me even more time to unravel the mess it has left in my brain and on my self esteem.”
As an installation artist, she conveys this message using her own art incorporated with props as a visual representation of the message.
The props in this case are thousands of diet books donated by dieters and artistically placed in the window to create a landscape for her papier-mâché Venuses, which are fully constructed from pages of diet books from such pundits as Dr. Phil McGraw, Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Robert Atkins.
A life-sized photo of Oelbaum adorned only with diet books is another central piece of the installation.
The Willendorf project has had many reincarnations, including one at the recent Grand Rapids Art Prize competition, where Oelbaum presented an 800-pound Venus made from various diet books.
“I want the viewer to feel the volume of the diet industry and to see how useless it is in resolving the so called ‘obesity crisis,’” she said.
“It is my thesis that it is better to accept yourself the way you are, and to accept the fact that people come in all different sizes than to try to mold yourself using unrealistic and unhealthy eating patterns for the sake of societal pressure and misinformation about health.”
She also added, “It is hard to be OK with yourself when everything, every commercial and every magazine is screaming that you have to change yourself.
“Of course it is about money, and the diet industry has made dieting itself an obsession and the truth is, from my own experience and many others, that diets are what make you fat.”
Oelbaum said she still has moments of weakness when she’ll buy a diet book or a pill, but now ends up incorporating them in her project.
Gallery owner Patt Slack said she chose to feature Oelbaum’s work because she wants young girls to understand its message.
“I know the war and am also a victim of it,” she said.
“Be proud of who and what you are and lead a healthy lifestyle — not one given to you by the ‘never thin enough, never good enough’ society.”
Oelbaum’s exhibit will be followed by a show called “My New Year’s Revolution” opening at next week’s Third Friday event.
Oelbaum will host “The Great Rip Up” during which people are invited to bring their old diet books and rip one up.
The pages then will be used to create another Venus.
The show runs through Feb. 18 at River’s Edge Gallery, 3024 Biddle Ave., Wyandotte.
URL: http://www.thenewsherald.com/articles/2011/01/14/entertainment/doc4d2de18490a14136273515.prt
© 2011 thenewsherald.com, a Journal Register Property
I have a bit of catching up to do…I was so tired by the end of the ArtPrize 2010 that I could not make an entry even though lots of interesting things where happening. For the most part I received a great deal of positive feedback from my performance and installation in Grand Rapids. There were a few snide remarks made in my direction which I have to say where almost laughable. One day a man and his wife came by the piece and while he was reading my artist’s statement his wife put her nose in the air and walked off muttering under her breath ” just walk ” as if I have never moved my body. The man looked up at me on stage and rolled his eyes and shrugged as if to say “what can I do? that’s just the way she is” Another day I arrived at the venue to find that someone had left me a little gift…their membership tag for their gym, strategically placed where I would find it. I laughed. I guess some people were just going to miss the point even as it was typed up in plain English right there in front of them “Go Out Side and Play” means exercise folks, only you can enjoy it instead of beating the crap out of yourself or working out until you puke.
This is hard work…being on display all day. Yesterday the book store saw the most people visiting for ArtPrize that they have so far and I imagine it will only be worse today. I find my being up there with my work has both a negative and positive effect on the people who come thru. Some people don’t look at the work close enough on their own to figure out that the sculptures are made of diet books and when I tell them they are…their interest in the work for the most part goes up, so it would seem that my presence in needed. Other people seem to want to look at the work without being observed…it’s as if they want to be invisible while looking, and they find my looking at them while they are critically looking at them uncomfortable. Some will sneakily glance at the work from behind magazines, or pretend to shop for something while secretly trying to catch a glimpse of the work when I’m not looking. I mean we all know why you came to downtown to this bookstore during this first week of ArtPrize…and it wasn’t to buy some stationary…so why so squeamish??
Some people act as if there is nothing there at all…is it the message they don’t want to see? I had one woman assume I was ripping up Bibles, I guess because artists are traditionally thought of as radical in this very conservative community they are figuring we are going to be trying to tear down what they hold dear. Or is it that you can’t represent Paleolithic Female or a Venus/Goddess would not mesh with biblical beliefs.
Trust me there are plenty of diet books that use religious terminology “The Thin Commandments” “The Low Carb Bible” and many that are faith-based, but I am hardly ripping up Bibles.
It is fun to rip up books in a book store and it does cause for some chuckling and out right confused looks. It drives me nuts when people approach my work already decided that it’s evil…you can just see it in their faces. When you try to engage with them you can tell that they have already shut down. I know it’s unlikely but I would love it if I got into the top 100 or even the top 25 and these people would have to revisit the work to find out what they had missed. Because you can just see that they have shut down completely. It’s not always the people you would imagine too. I am shocked at how many woman of size will completely avoid the work…do they think I am making fun of them? Are they too embarrassed themselves to face this issue out in the open?
I am thrilled when people finally get it…when I see the light go on over their heads…I really feel that this work resonates with many women…not all of them fat…It would be great to get some press. I can’t believe what a positive response I get from the people who come and see work and how it doesn’t show in the poles.
A photographer friend of mine Roger Anderson took a series of shots of me…like I have said many times ( if not here to anyone who has been listening…) I never expected to win anything here…but saw this as a photo-op. I’m in a hard location…up on a stage that is not well-lit when it comes to photography. But he was able to get some good ones. I kinda felt a bit like a grad student…after all that is his business…but I think he got the essence of the installation pretty well…Don’t you agree??
WTF??? YOU HAVEN'T VOTED FOR ME YET???
GET YOUR FAT FANNIES OVER TO THE HUBB IN GRAND RAPIDS, REGISTER AND VOTE FOR ME…I NEED MORE MONEY FOR DIET BOOKS!!!
Yesterday I went to pick up the pants I had embroidered from this wonderful woman named Cynthia Lehman. I found her online while looking for someone to put all the “Phat Phrases” on my “Phat Pants” and let me tell you these pants are PHAT not simply FAT…they are outstanding…I almost fainted straight away when I saw them. They were so wonderful suddenly I had all the energy in the world and enthusiasm to drive back to Ann Arbor and get my Bustier/Corsette I had made to order in San Fransisco this summer from Dark Garden. I also got my kiss ass Domme Boots too to wear for opening night. It is going to look wonderful. I hope I get some pictures when I am properly all dolled up…but here are some shots of me taken by my wonderful friend Suzanne who used to be a costumer in the theater…I had her tie me in to the corsette for the first time yesterday. Sadly we had to stuff the boobage…I think we were too afraid that Iwouldn’t be able to get myself into it on my own tonight if we laced it too tightly. I seriously look like a Brick Karzi…Brit for Brick House…Thanks to one of my many Fat Studies brainstormers.
I can’t thank you all enough the names are brilliant and the pants look outstanding…don’t you all wish you had a pair??? You probably could order them…by contacting Grand Rapids Embroidery www.grandrapids-embroidery.com maybe not. They are mine… all mine.
…wink
Fat Feminist Activist Artist's Blog 
