Erwin Olaf .- Dusk & Dawn
22/Oct/2009 - 05/Dec/2009
ERWIN OLAF’s fourth exhibition at Espacio MÍnimo Gallery will bring together his two latest series, Dusk and Dawn, shown side-by-side for the first time, their titles combining to create that of the show.
If in his earlier works such as Royal Blood, Mature, or fashion victims his objects were clear– violence, sexuality, ageing – in his recent trilogy Rain, Hope and Grief OLAF’s motivations have been more cryptic and enigmatic.
Dusk was created for the exhibition Amsterdam/ New York Perspectives: Dutch Photography in New York held at the Museum of the City of New York. It emerged, on the one hand, from the way in which he has always been impressed by the diversity of the city’s inhabitants, their different origins and colour of their skin, and on the other hand, from the interest that his Blacks series awakened in the afro-american community after it was recently shown in North Carolina, inducing him to incorporate some of its spirit into his new work. Ultimately the inspiration arose from a book published by MOMA titled The Hampton Album 44 Photographs0 that included the photographs that Frances B. Johnston had taken at the Hampton Institute around 1900. The images captured by this pioneer in photography, which intrigued and captivated Olaf for their superb quality, depicted afro-americans in a previously unseen way: men and women portrayed with dignity in middle class homes and in classroom scenes where the teachers, for the most part, were white men and women.
Elements in these images, such as the clothes, religion, and the atmosphere provide the starting point upon which to recreate the feel of 1900 and to create dark and seemingly empty images, with no predetermined content, but which are the beginning of the most disquieting and suggestive narrative.
The result is six photographs – two scenes, two portraits, and two decorative elements – and a video made using the same set and two of the characters in the photographs. Through the use of sound and movement Olaf is able to enter this universe of restrained emotions.
Dawn emerges as a reflection of Dusk. The same approach, the same situations, similar characters, but their opposites. The same era but in a different place. Now, instead of rich Afro-America New Yorkers, what is evoked is an early twentieth century Russian dacha, completely white and Caucasian.
A strange dialogue operates between these two series which, conceived of as a unit, are shown here for the first time as one single installation.
ERWIN OLAF (Hilversum, Holanda, 1959), lives and works in Ámsterdam. He has shown individually in, amongst others, Fodor Museum in Ámsterdam (1990), Stedelijk Museum in Ámsterdam (1992), Frankfurter Kunst Verein in Frankfurt (1993), Kunsthal in Rotterdam (1993) Fotofestival in Naarden (1995), Ludwig Museum Cologne (1998), Museum of Modern Art in Hasselt (2001), Museo D’Arte Provincia di Nuoro (2002), Museum Sztuki in Lodz (2003), Groninger Museum in Groninger (2003), Galleria D’Arte Moderna in Bologna (2005), Museum of Modern Art in Mosow (2005), Australian Centre of Photography in Sidney (2005), The Hague Museum of Photography in The Hague (2008), South Eastern Centre for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem (2008), Photo Museum Antwerp in Antwerp (2009)… and important collectives.
Olaf’s work has been included in some of the world’s most distinguished public and private collections and museums.
