Photographer Report

                                           

                                        Erwin Olaf

       Erwin Olaf was born in Hilversum in the Netherlands in 1959, and has lived and worked in Amsterdam since the early 80's. Using a combination of both photojournalism and studio photography, Olaf emerged in the international art scene in 1988 when his series 'Chessmen' was awarded the first prize in the Young European Photographer competition. Following this award was an exhibition at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany. Since then Olaf has continued to explore issues of gender, sensuality, humor, despair and grace in each of his many series.

       Starting with his early work in being printed in documentary style black & white, he gradually worked into color and then finally into digital manipulation. Looking at each of his series, you will be able to see a great contrast between each. Olaf has also worked in the fields of video, film, and music. His first film Tadzio, was followed by comic videos for children's television, music clips, short films and documentaries, and even commissions by the Dutch National Ballet.

       Olaf has created video works of his photography pieces, starring models that also appear in the accompanying photo series. The models play different characters in the films, as though his moving images provide a parallel history to his color photographs. These short films have been selected for film festivals all over the world. Over the years many of Olaf's works have provoked controversy. With the ability to attract attention, his work has been embraced by the advertising world resulting in commercials for Lavazza, BMW, Microsoft and Nintendo among many others. Olaf is also frequently shooting in commission for magazines such as The New York Times Magazine and The Sunday Times Magazine

       Many of Olaf’s pieces have been made into publications. His 274-page book Silver served as the catalogue for his retrospective in 2003 at the Groninger Museum. After other published books, the Aperture Foundation published the monograph simply named Erwin Olaf, that was presented during the opening of his solo exhibition in The Hague Museum of Photography, was ran from September 2007, to January 2008. Olaf had another major solo exhibition at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. Other solo shows have been staged in institutions like the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Frankfurter Kunstverein, the Chelsea Art Museum in New York, and Space E6 in Shenzhen, China.

       In 1999, Olaf was awarded the Silver Lion at the Festival for Advertising in Cannes for his worldwide campaign for Diesel Jeans. Two years later, he was awarded the same for his imagery produced for Heineken. Among numerous other international art and media prizes, he was awarded Photographer of the Year in the International Color Awards in 2006. In 2007 Kunstbeeld magazine chose him as Artist of the Year of the Netherlands. Most recently, he received a Lucie Award for his entire oeuvre.