Dutch photo artist Erwin Olaf creates a world for his photographs and films that is staged down to the smallest detail. Although it looks confusingly like ours, it appears enigmatic in its artificiality. With their aesthetics borrowed from the film and advertising industries, his pictures are only superficially immaculate and striking. In fact, they deal with questions of democracy, equality and self-determination. On the occasion of his first major solo exhibition in Germany, this accompanying catalogue explains essential aspects of Olaf's artistic work.
At the same time, it offers an attractive overview of his multifaceted work over the past forty years. Also published here for the first time are Olaf's most recent works, which were created especially for the exhibition at the Kunsthalle München. ERWIN OLAF (*1959, Netherlands) began capturing nightlife in documentary photography in the 1980s and went on to develop into an artist who, as a director and photographer, creates cinematic photographs that are usually characterised by a mystical mood. His work is recognised worldwide and has been presented many times in exhibitions.
Erwin Olaf
Strange Beauty
Edited by Roger Diederen, Anja Huber, Kunsthalle München, text(s) by Daniel Hornuff, Anja Huber, Claudia Peppel, Franziska Stöhr, Estelle Vallender
English
Hatje Cantz Verlag
2021. 240 pages, 300 ill.
Hardcover
24,00 x 30,00 cm
ISBN 978-3-7757-4921-3
Exhibition: Kunsthalle of the Hypo-Kulturstiftung Munich: 14.5.-16.9.2021
© Erwin Olaf, Courtesy Galeria Ron Mandos Amsterdam, Hatje Cantz Verlag
