A Russian-born conceptual interdisciplinary artist currently based in New York, Olga Ast began exhibiting in the mid 1980s after the fall of the Soviet regime, when Soviet aesthetics stretched beyond 'socialist realism.' She was creating sculptural installations using mirrors, metal, transparent materials, various ready-made objects, and texts. Her projects have combined different media to find the interconnecting threads between divergent fields such as art, poetry, philosophy, science and technology. Ast's installations and other work resided in the 'gray zone' between art and science, among other disciplines. As a result, my attempts to find organic connections between different fields directly relate to my goals today – to build a connective language between art and science, resulting in collaboration between these fields.

In 1992, Ast started to develop 'Field of Vision,' a series of texts, performances, and exhibitions (Space Traps; A Dispersion of Meanings; Eve & Death; Reconstruction of Adam…), which were presented in different venues in Moscow, New York and worldwide. These works explored the spatial and contextual relationships between objects by presenting the viewer with long rows of different objects in motion – rotating, reflective and translucent. Olga's goal was to explore the notion of space as an artistic medium, bridging the gap between physics and art.

After coming to NYC in 1994, Ast exhibited together with other Russian artists in various New York institutions, and have more recently begun embracing American artistic and scientific communities. She currently continue to work on her project 'Field of Vision' and is developing a new piece called 'In Search of Absent Time.' This is a cross-disciplinary investigation into the nature of time, based on both aesthetic and scientific principles. One of her main goals in this project is to investigate connections between space, time and information.

In 2009, Olga Ast organized and curated the ArcheTime Conference and Exhibition in New York, dedicated to exploring artistic, academic and scientific concepts of time. In 2009, Ast published a book Fleeing from Absence, which explores the nature and interpretations of time in four essays: 'The Visualization of Time,' 'In Search of Absent Time,' 'The Origin of Forms,' and 'A Copy Machine.'

Selected Exhibitions & Public Presentations

1994-1999

1992–1994

1986–1992

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

AWARDS

WEB PRESENTATIONS

EDUCATION