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TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary

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Tarek Atoui. At-Tāriq
A Journey into the Rural Music Traditions of North Africa and the Arab World

Tarek Atoui. At-Tāriq | Public Program

Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies
Independent study program, Year One

Organismo | Public program
Independent study program, Year One

The Ecologies of Peace II

The Ecologies of Peace II - Winter Mediation program

Otras montañas las que andan sueltas bajo el agua
Exhibition at Ocean Space - Venice

Echoes of the Sanctuary

Webs of Water
An Online Activations Series

TBA21–Academy’s Ocean Space Wins Flash Art Italia Award for Innovation and Sustainability

A first look at our 2025 exhibition program

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Olaf Nicolai
LENIN: 8qm, 2000

Photo: Uwe Walter | Courtesy of Galerie EIGEN+ART, Leipzig, Berlin

Olaf Nicolai

Collection

Fishscale material, silk, embroidered label
283 x 283 cm

Olaf Nicolai is interested in the process whereby a work of art is transformed into a consumer object and vice versa as well as in the ideological transformation of works of art, cult and utilitarian objects. Whereas the transformation of socialism to capitalism is the idea behind Lenin: 8 qm, the work can also become an abstract and purely formal textile sculpture, which still does not lose its socialist connotations, which survives in its title. Lenin: 8 qm is a carpet made of hand-sewn, fish scale material 8 square meters in size, representing the living space which Vladimir I. Lenin allocated in 1917 to each Soviet citizen. Olaf Nicolai's work expresses the ambivalence between utopian, pragmatic and consumerist definitions, inherent to the concept of "living space".

Olaf Nicolai (*1962 in Halle, living and working in Berlin, Germany) is considered one of Germany’s leading artists, Olaf Nicolai takes on a range of conceptual themes, from political and cultural critiques to inquiries into human perception. A recurring subject is the aesthetic appropriation of nature by human culture and design, explored through mixed-media sculptures and images, as in his juxtaposition of plant forms with depictions of hand gestures in Italian Renaissance paintings. “Questions of form, moods, attitudes, and style are not just vain play with surfaces,” Nicolai has said. “They are questions of organizational forms of activities.”

This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

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Artists

Olaf Nicolai