Hamilton present Erwin Olaf : Bigger Than Lifea celebration of Olaf’s life and photographic work. The exhibition features important works from the artist’s four-decade career, including works from series such as Chessmen, Im Wald, Palm Springs, Paradise et Griefas well as a selection of self-portraits. It is a monumental celebration of the artist’s contribution to the visual arts and his long-standing friendship with Hamiltons Gallery.
Erwin Olaf died in 2023. In one of the artist’s last conversations with Shirley den Hartog, his right-hand man and studio executive, he said he wanted to be remembered as “bigger than nature “. This exhibition pays homage to this wish.
During his life, Olaf was internationally recognized as an artist whose diverse practice focused on marginalized individuals in society, including women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. In 2019, following the acquisition of 500 works by the Rijksmuseum, Olaf became a Knight of the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands. On this occasion, Taco Dibbits, the director of the Rijksmuseum, described Olaf as “one of the most important photographers of the last quarter of the 20th century”. In fall 2025, the Stedelijk Museum will unveil a major retrospective of Olaf’s works, hailing him as “a free thinker and tireless defender of equal rights and freedom of expression.”
The walls are adorned almost floor to ceiling with Olaf’s works, spanning years and photographic series. The scale of the exhibition is a metaphor for the scale of Olaf’s legacy; an ode to Erwin Olaf as “larger than life”.
Influenced by artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Helmut Newton, Olaf’s early works were marked by a clear subversion of social norms, a questioning of taboos and an exploration of sexuality in modern society. Olaf began his career while living in a squat in Amsterdam documenting nightlife in the 1980s, but he soon explored his own series and subjects in black and white and color. As his career progressed, he began photographing surrealist tableau-style images, adopting the role of both director and photographer, opting for a cinematic style imbued with stillness that seeks to express the real emotions and neuroses of the model.
Olaf’s very theatrical productions are reminiscent of the early 1960s, highlighted by a diluted color palette. It draws inspiration from this period of major social change, the rise of feminism, a prosperous middle class, globalization and the haunting influence of television in the homes of America’s nouveau riche. Influenced also by his own travels and the feelings of transience and anomie that accompany them, Olaf’s models often look into the distance and evoke a sense of uneasy and disconnected mystery. Their cinematic character reflects Olaf’s evolution as an artist, oriented towards more complex narratives.
The exhibition presents a wide range of the many issues addressed by Olaf in his work. His series “Im Wald” (2020), which translates to “In the Forest,” draws attention to several global issues, including the climate crisis, wanderlust, migration, and the COVID19 pandemic; directly investigate the impact of nature on our lives. The works in his “Skin Deep” series (2015) explore the theme of the naked body; Olaf strove to challenge the viewer to perceive more clearly our contemporary notions of skin and sensation, beauty and the body, without prejudice. These images constitute his refutation of the overwhelming saturation of sex and desire inherent in our modern market and mass media society. Meanwhile, works from Berlin (2012), Shanghai (2017) and Palm Springs (2018) explore the developments and changing cultures of three different cities, guiding the viewer to contemporary challenges faced in the context of societal histories, including tension between rapid cultural expansion and deeply rooted traditions in Chinese communities, or LGBTQ+ rights, racial injustice and gender inequalities in American society.
Erwin Olaf was motivated by the power of storytelling and the emotion that images can provoke. He overcame initial controversy with his mastery of the medium, marking him as one of the most important emerging visual artists in the Netherlands. Upon his death, the Dutch royal family issued a statement lamenting the nation’s loss of a “unique, exceptionally talented photographer and great artist.” His legacy is a seminal body of work that challenged societal norms and continually posed the question first asked by his photography teacher: “What is normal?”
Erwin Olaf was born in Hilversum in the Netherlands in 1959. He first gained international recognition in 1988 after winning the Young European Photographer of the Year award for his series « Chessmen ».
Olaf’s bold approach to photography has earned him commissions from Louis Vuitton, Vogue and the Rijksmuseum, among others. In addition to numerous international awards during his career, his work is held in numerous private and public collections internationally, including, among others, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain in Paris, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow or the Art Progressive Collection in the United States. Olaf has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle München, Germany; the Suwon Art Museum, Suwon, Korea; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung City, Taiwan and Centro Cultural De La Villa, Madrid, Spain.
In March 2023, His Majesty King Willem-Alexander and Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands presented Erwin Olaf with the Medal of Honor for Art and Science of the Order of the House of Orange at the palace Noordeinde in The Hague. Erwin Olaf died in 2023 in Leide, Netherlands.
Erwin Olaf : Bigger Than Life
Until February 1, 2025
Hamilton
13 Carlos Place London
W1K 2EU United Kingdom
www.hamiltonsgallery.com
