Erwin Olaf was born in Holland in 1959 and is one of the most innovative artists currently working in photography.
Olaf’s works are characterised by a sense of humour and constant allusion to images from the world of art and sub-culture. Olaf is inspired by pornographic photos, advertising and fashion, to which he brings his own exciting and captivating style. His photo series, which were black and white in the early eighties and became colour in the nineties, with elegant and virtuoso digital re-working, are ironic and visually dazzling comments on communication processes in the world of advertising, fashion, the scandal mongering tabloids and porn photography. They are also inspired by images from art history, to reflect on the masks imposed by day to day interaction and the separation between the public persona and emotional and physical reality.
Erwin Olaf has held important solo exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Groninger Museum in Holland, the Frankfurter Kunsteverein and the Ludwig Museum in Germany, at Paris Photo, at the Flatland Gallery in Utrecht, at Wessel O’Connor in New York and at Espacio Minimo in Madrid. In 1988 he won the Young European Photographers’ Award in Germany and a Silver Lion in Cannes in 1998 for the Diesel advertising campaign and again in 2001 for the Heineken advertising campaign. One of his photographs was chosen as the poster for the Valencia Biennale in 2001.