CELESTE OLALQUIAGA
BOOKS
“Downward Spiral seems to leave no stone unturned as it explores El Helicoide’s many facets. The book features no less than 28 chapters—authored primarily by Venezuelan scholars—that delve into the building’s unique design, complex history, urban context, use as a prison, and its connections to larger topics ranging from spiral-shaped architecture to oil politics, vertical slums (such as the Torre David), and modern ruins." Zachary Edelson, “A New Book Tells the Story of a Modernist Mall Turned Political Prison,” Metropolis, January 2018 http://www.metropolismag.com/architecture/downward-spiral-book-el-helicoide/
"La remarquable connaissance qu'a Olalquiaga de la littérature et des arts mobiliers, de l'architecture et des revues, des porcelaines et des imageries du siècle, lui permet d'identifier des objets exemplaires - le Chrystal Palace à Londres, la grotte de Venus à Linderhof voulue par Louis II de Bavière, le Nautilus imaginé par Jules Verne - et d'organiser entre eux des relations soudain évidentes. Elle pratique l'histoire et l'anthropologie culturelles avec l'élégance fluide qu'autorise un savoir impeccable.” Phillipe Dagen, “La philosophie dans l’aquarium,” Le Monde des livres, December 2008 http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2008/12/25/la-philosophie-dans-l-aquarium_1134983_3260.html
“Celeste Olalquiaga nos ofrece con El reino artificial un fascinante estudio donde, desde la mirada de Rodney, un cangrejo ermitaño aprisionado en una bola de vidrio, la autora reflexiona sobre la ruina, el kitsch nostálgico y el melancólico, y el papel que tuvo la pasión por el coleccionismo en la vida del siglo XIX." Alejandro Varderi, Adamar, Abril 2011 http://adamar.org/ivepoca/node/636
“[Olalquiaga’s book] is a historical enquiry into the intertwining stories of the glass-encased bibelot, the cabinet of curiosities, the cluttered drawing-room, the fake mermaid, the subaqueous realm of Captain Nemo and other such dreamscapes and, at the same time, a theoretical enquiry into the nature of kitsch and a defense of it – or certain aspects of it – against the opprobrium under which it usually falls.” Peter Wollen, “Say Hello to Rodney,” London Review of Books, February 2000 www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n04/peter-wollen/say-hello-to-rodney
"El libro de Celeste Olalquiaga irrumpió brillantemente en el debate sobre lo residual y lo periférico, lo descentrado, de una alter-modernidad latinoamericana que revisita la autora mezclando el cosmopolitismo de lo moderno con la hibridez transcultural del collage postmodernista.” Nelly Richard, contraportada reedición 2014.
“Few books can compare with Megalopolis's trenchant, lucid, and sensitive readings of Western urban cultures, and the practices and structures of feeling that constitute them. Like the best science fiction, a form repeatedly invoked by Olalquiaga, Megalopolis changes the way you think about contemporary urban culture.” Jon Thompson, “Consuming Megalopolis,” Postmodern Culture, January 1993 http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.193/review-2.193
