Presentation of CULA by Olaf Nicolai

During the Gallery Weekend Berlin that took place from 29th April until today (1st May) Olaf Nicolai participated with two special events. The "SAMANI. A proposal to answer some important questions" on the 29th April was an installation, where Nicolai used the choreographed movement of a pole dancer in a single light which was moving up and down a pole and turning on its own axis at the darkened.

The second one was the presentation of CULA. In 2010 Olaf Nicolai designed the CULA edition for the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory, which approaches the repeating topics and motifs of his work anew. The edition CULA consists of a tea set for one person. CULA is concepted as a set which can also serve as requisite for a performance: Besides the tea set, CULA also includes a book with the short tale ›Korallengärten und ihre Magie‹, which can be read out to oneself or to another person while enjoying the tea and in which the tea set plays a part too. The text composed by a collective of five authors (Paul Feigelfeld, Olaf Nicolai, Jan Verwoert, Jan Wenzel and Eva Wilson) will be performed as a lecture on the occasion of the presentation.

Olaf Nicolai who counts as one of today’s leading German artists, works conceptually and breaks new ground in order to extract art from the classic forms of representation and marketing. Olaf Nicolai (born in 1962 in Halle/Saale, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. He is the recipient of numerous well-known scholarships: Scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation for the German University Centre in Venice (1993), Scholarship of the Villa Massimo, Rome (1996), Scholarship of the MoMA PS1, New York (1998), Scholarship of IASPIS, Stockholm (2000), Art Prize of the City of Wolfsburg (2002), Scholarship of the City of Paris (2007), and Scholarship of the Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (2008).

Exhibitions, among others, in the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2010/2011), in the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover (2010), in the Apollo Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2008/2009), at the 51st Biennale in Venice (2005), in the Moderna Museet (Museum of Modern Art) in Stockholm (2004), at the Biennale in Gwangju (2002) and Berlin (1998), in the MoMA PS1, New York (1997 and 1999), and as part of the Documenta X in Kassel (1997).