ART CITIES:Vienna-Olaf Nicolai

Renowned for his inventive work with a diverse array of materials and mediums, over the last 25 years Olaf Nicolai has conceived conceptual works that are highly complex and poetic. He develops a variety of interdisciplinary projects that address the primary experiences of space, time and corporeality. Performative elements, works that transform over time, modifications of everyday objects and popular culture icons – as well as a rich field of reference to iconic moments in political and intellectual history – characterize his artistic practice.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Kunsthalle Wien Archive

The title of Olaf Nicolai’s multilayered exhibition the Kunsthalle Wien is “There Is No Place Before Arrival”.  The exhibition comprises a main installation conceived specifically for the central hall of Kunsthalle and goes beyond the walls of the institution through a number  of interventions, both object and time-based, physical and performative at different venues offering an expanded project which takes place between private and public spaces.  At Kunsthalle Wien Olaf Nicolai has commissioned several street and theatre painters to paint onto the floor a pool of 22 images of different kinds selected from his personal archive of newspaper clippings. The entire space is left empty without any artificial architectural intervention, presenting a gigantic “carpet” of images on which the visitors are able to walk over and around.  The conceptual gesture of translating photographs from public media sources into floor paintings is a way to incorporate these particular images into a different context, which affects the perception of them and thus their reception. Over the course of the exhibition, the installation will not only gradually changeand slowly vanish, but it will also  be activated by writers, dancers, choreographers, musicians, artists and performers invited to respond to this painted plateau and its individual images. In cooperation with museum in progress, the exhibition will find an extension within media and digital space under a project titled “media loop”. Photographs of the painted images included in the installation will be published in international newspapers and magazines, realizing a contextual feedback loop by bringing the original imagery back into circulation. A key aspect of Nicolai’s methodological approach is the way he engages with the context in which his work is presented. In order to reflect on this context and call it into question. The exhibition extends itself outside of the institutional white cube, and develops in the form of interdisciplinary projects, thereby multiplying the references and interactions the works make with one another and to their environment. At the Sigmund Freud Museum “Trauer und Melancholie” (2009/12) is on show. On occasion of the Third Riwaq Biennale in Ramallah in 2009, Olaf Nicolai had the idea to have Freud’s text translated for the first time into Arabic in both written and audio form. He produced a free, self-made publication and an audio version in the local dialect which was broadcast via a radio station. The original publication together with  a video describing the complexity of the process of translation is on display at the Sigmund Freud Museum providing a glimpse of the preparations for the reading on the radio. The work was conceived against the backdrop of the marginal circulation of Freud’s writings in Arabic and the ongoing discussion about the relevance of psychoanalysis in the Arabic world. At ZOOM Children’s Museum Olaf Nicolai realized a workshop for kids based on hiw work “A Coloring book for children after motifs by Arnulf Rainer” (2002) which is on view. Drawings and collages from a portfolio created by Arnulf Rainer  (Proportionsordnungen, 1954) were used to provide templates to be painted out or painted over in the children’s drawing book. The Monument for the Victims of Nazi Military Justice at Ballhausplatz is another site for the wide-ranging exhibition activities. Based on a design by the artist and built in 2014, it is a memorial to people persecuted by the Nazis for refusing to serve in the military. The monument plays an essential role in the current project, serving as a stage for vocal performers to perform a cappella pieces. The work is a continuation of “Escalier Du Chant” realized in 2011 for Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne. Nicolai commissioned eleven international composers to write songs based on political events that were of current relevance to them. Without prior announcement, the songs were then performed by Stuttgart’s Neue Vocalsolisten on the museum’s central staircase. In an ode to the performance of Mother Courage and her Children in 1963 at the Volkstheater, and in reference to the end of the Vienna “Brecht Boycott” (1953–1963), Nicolai presents the Mercedes-Benz Ponton bought by Austrian actress and wife of Bertolt Brecht: Helene Weigel. Rediscovered and made roadworthy, the vehicle—purchased by Weigel as a company car while Director of the Berliner Ensemble—will travel to Vienna where it can be found parked at various locations around Burgtheater and Volkstheater. Georg Fritsch is one of the most prominent booksellers and antiquarians in Austria. More than a bookstore, Antiquariat Fritsch has always played a crucial role for the Vienna intellectual and avant-garde scene counting on friendship with writers. Nicolai stages an intervention inside the bookshop and the window display, centred around the seminal manifesto “Eight Point Proclamation of the Poetic Act” written in 1953 by H.C. Artmann, one of the founders of Wiener Gruppe.  “There Is No Place Before Arrival” connects with past survey exhibitions presented by the Kunsthalle Wien such as Babette Mangolte, Nathalie du Pasquier, Pierre Bismuth, Charlemagne Palestine, Ydessa Hendeles, all of which went against the grain of typical exhibition formats.

Info: Curator: Luca Lo Pinto, Kunsthalle Wien, Museumsquartier, Museumsplatz 1, Vienna, Duration: 13/7-7/10/18, Days & Hours: Mon-Wed & Fri-Sun 11:00-19:00, Thu 11:00-21:00, www.kunsthallewien.at