Sep 21st 2016

Dean's Lecture Series Video: Erwin Olaf

Erwin Olaf delivered a lecture on Wed., Sept. 21  in S. R. Crown Hall as part of the Fall 2016 Dean's Lecture Series. Watch the video now.

Erwin Olaf is a Dutch photographer and filmmaker whose art implicitly visualises the unspoken, the overlooked, that which typically resists easy documentation. Olaf's trademark is to address social issues, taboos and bourgeois conventions within the framework of a highly stylised mode of imagery. Olaf mixes photojournalism with studio photography and his work has been widely exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Europe and North America.

In the past years Olaf's films have been screened at several leading museums and film festivals all around the world including Centre Pompidou - Paris, Reina Sofia National Museum - Madrid, SCCA, Centre for Contemporary Art - Ljubljana, and the Museum at FIT - New York City; Fashion Film Festival - Melbourne, Rencontres International Film festival - Paris, International Film Festival Turkey - Ankara, EMAF Festival - Osnabrück, Dutch International Film Festival -Rotterdam.

In 2013 Erwin Olaf's design for the new national side of the Dutch euro coins was selected from 12 designs by competing artists. In the beginning of 2014 the new coins came into circulation. In the fall of 2014, Aperture published an overview of Erwin Olaf's work throughout the years, including his most recent work.