Galerie im Taxispalais

OLAF NICOLAI

7 Postcards for Innsbruck

The Galerie im Taxispalais presents the first solo exhibition in Austria of Olaf Nicolai (*1962 in Halle/Saale, lives and works in Berlin), who counts as one of the most important German artists of his generation. He has developed a range of interdisciplinary projects that question the elemental experience of space, time, and physicality. In the process, he repeatedly crisscrosses different media formats, his treatment of them often at odds with their original purpose, thus developing multilayered and unexpected references. Whether it is a science fiction novel, a piece of music, or industrial manufacturing processes, Nicolai acts as a mediator between the given field and forms of imagination in order to contemplate social behaviour at the interface with historical conditions. The exhibition shows new works by Olaf Nicolai and relates them to key motifs from his artistic oeuvre. One of these is the significance of interpretation as a component of artistic production which can be experienced in various constellations in the exhibition, whether by incorporating the viewer as a protagonist, or using texts and drawings as notations for musicians. In the new, several- part work 7 Postcards for Innsbruck Nicolai uses the inner formations and markings of stones as a starting point from which to investigate the question of how information is transmitted. In this piece he refers to the visual culture of geology as well as the historical building of the Galerie im Taxispalais, which once served as a post office.

Curator: Jürgen Tabor

A catalogue will be published on the occasion of the exhibition.