Artists

Olaf Holzapfel Born in 1969 in Görlitz, Germany | Lives and workst in Dresden und Berlin

Portrait

Olaf Holzapfel

Olaf Holzapfel

Olaf Holzapfel’s work fluctuates between sculpture, photography, and painting. He focuses on urban space, probing the genesis and appearance of its structures and intervening spaces. Stratified, dense spaces appear in succession in his pictures that evoke associations with major metropolises as well as computer interfaces. The rhythmic dynamism of the compressed pictorial spaces suggests a complex and transmutable reality.

In his installations, Holzapfel develops labile architectures and dwellings of flexible, interlocking cardboard and paper. Huge objects of elements held together with colored polyamide threads by a type of plug-in technique are fixated in the room and harnessed together into optical spatial drawings. Along with fiberboard, Holzapfel also uses a natural fiber produced by an indigenous ethnic group in northern Argentina, the Wichi, as a provisional material. The igloo-shaped tent of net-like webbing is covered with abstract ornamentation and refers to the fruitful transfer of cultural technologies, as does the inclusion of traditional straw ropes in his reliefs. The workmanlike building method of the architectonic wooden beam constructions also quotes a classic branch of carpentry while making reference in their shapes to constructivist models of utopian architecture. The installation contains serial elements of form that first found their way into the history of sculpture in the 1960s and incorporates an exciting combination of sculpture and architecture, tradition, and the avant garde.

 

Education

1996–2001 Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Dresden
2001–2002 National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India

Solo exhibitions (selection)

2011 3 wie 1, 2 in 3, 2, 1, 1 über 1“, Galerie Gebr. Lehmann Dresden
2010 Johnen Galerie, Berlin
2009 Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
 Kunstmuseum, MĂĽlheim
2008 Die Nachbarschaft der Dinge, Galerie Hussenot, Paris
2007 Unbestechliche Archive, Sabine Knust, Munich
2005 Hand und FuĂź, Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Dresden
Der Absolute Zusammenhang, Johnen Galerie, Berlin

Group exhibitions (selection)

2012 Wahlverwandtschaften, Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg
2011 Illuminations, La Biennale di Venezia, Latin American Pavillion
 Abstrakt // Skulptur, Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin
 Köln Skulptur 6, Skulpturenpark Cologne
 Informellnatur, Galerie Sabine Knust MĂĽnchen
 DrauĂźen ist feindlich, Kunstsalon Bel Etage, Berlin
2010 Menos Tiempo que lugar, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile
 Welt und System, Städtische Galerie, Dresden
2008 Der groĂźe Wurf. Faltungen in der Gegenwartskunst, Museum Haus Lange und Kaiser-Wilhelm-Museum, Krefeld
2007 Very Abstract and Hyper Figurative, Thomas Dane Gallery, London
2006 Insa, Mantik ve His – Construction, Ratio and Sense, Galerist, Istanbul
2005 Urbane Realitäten – Fokus Istanbul, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin
The Addiction 4. Berlin-Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst / Gagosian Gallery