Erwin Olaf

Berlin

There is no way to avoid being confronted with visuals in these days. We live in a visual culture. The communication techniques that are constantly subject to innovation accelerate the worldwide circulation of images. No matter where we look at, every conceivable surface, from our car dashboards to our telephones, seems to hold potential as a site on which to put a visual screen. Whereas fine arts are an ancient process of displaying, which seems to be locked up in museums and galleries, it became more present and meanwhile incorporates a big part of our contemporary visual culture since photography got added the discipline during the era of modernity. Photography, and in this vein, fine arts have their fingers on the pulse of the time. This is at least what the works of Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf show and prove.

The exhibition Erwin Olaf: Short Stories shows a selection of well known series of the last few years combined with a new video installation. With numerous international exhibitions and publications Erwin Olaf has been receiving international attention for years, because his works have a polarizing effect.

The provocation lies partly in their immediacy and intrusiveness with which the artist represents his sometimes erotically charged motifs. Beautiful women and magnificent rooms often reflect a glamorous, dreamlike world, in which dramas unfold at second glance. By means of consistent staging of interior and person Olaf narrates in series such as “Hotel”, “Hope” or “Grief” intense stories in cinematic ways.

Wagner + Partner

March 16th – May 12th, 2012
Karl-Marx-Allee 87
10243 Berlin
Germany

Erwin Olaf

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