Charity event to support the NAAU
Olaf Nicolai
Artists
Vira Barynova-KulebaTracey EminOli EppKim FalerRyan GanderAntony GormleyAllen JonesAnatoly KryvolapChristopher Le BrunPavlo MakovVolodymyr ManzhosLubomir MedvidOlaf NicolaiKitty RiceHarry RudhamAlaia de SantisArsen SavadovSiggi SekiraDavid aiu Servan-SchreiberLisa SharpeConrad ShawcrossYinka ShonibareStephen ShoreTiberiy Silvashi Sergei SviatchenkoVictor SydorenkoJuergen TellerOleg TistolTatiana Drozd, Olga Kisseleva, Taisiya PolischukRuslan Tremba Olesia TrofymenkoClare WoodsGamlet Zinkivskyi
Untitled
2022, folding, coloured pencil on handmade paper, envelope, 23,7 x 15,8 cm
The "FALTUNGEN" are messages, greetings to people. Messages that arise while I am making the "folds", just as one writes a letter. The "recipients", when they follow the "folds", partially trace what I do when I „write“ them. First, the sheet is folded without a predetermined plan, just that it fits into an envelope. Then unfolded again to mark it with colours.
The message is conveyed through the unfolding and the image that emerges. It is up to you whether you treat the folding as a drawing or as an object. Whether one considers the envelope, with one's own name, as belonging to it. Or whether it is just a necessary utensil. The message is conveyed and the letter is read by reflecting on it - also while following the folding.
About the artist
Olaf Nicolai (b. 1962) – German conceptual artist. Nicolai's conceptual approach and continuous use of diverse media and materials both question the way in which we view our everyday environment. He is constantly translating scientific theories into art, into aesthetic-artistic idioms, rendering them accessible through new contexts.
Olaf Nicolai grew up in the German Democratic Republic. From 1983 to 1988 he studied German language and literature at the universities of Leipzig, Vienna and Budapest, in 1992 obtaining a doctorate from Leipzig University. His thesis concerned the Poetics of the Wiener Gruppe, exploring the means of expression used and their strategic implementation. There exists a close relation between this group's work and his own artistic endeavours. Nicolai also holds a diploma in applied arts from the Technical College at Schneeberg in Saxony.
His works were shown at documenta in 1997 and at the Venice Biennale in 2001, 2005 and 2015. He has been awarded various grants and fellowships, for example from Villa Massimo, Rome (1998) and from Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (2007). Since the early 1990s, Nicolai has participated in numerous international solo and group exhibitions at important crossroads of contemporary arts. Several of his works can be found in public collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York and at the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, Berlin.
Olaf Nicolai lives and works in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district.