Olaf Nicolai studied Fine Arts at the School of Applied Arts, Schneeberg, and German Literature and Philology at the Universities of Leipzig, Budapest, and Vienna. This may well help to explain his intense passion for books – collecting as well as producing – and the often poetic shift evident in his work. In 1992, he completed a Ph.D. on the Vienna Group. Olaf’s conceptual work often allows (socio-)political references. Multiple antipodal opposites (socialist and capitalist, hedonist and idealist, introverted and extroverted) merge or overlap. His work might be wellnigh characterized by its elusively double-edged quality, its tendency to unfathomable ambiguity.
Olaf Nicolai has been awarded numerous grants and residencies. Since the early 1990s, his work has been displayed in many international group and solo exhibitions including Busan Biennale, 2012; documenta X, 1997; Venice Biennale, 2001 and 2005; Sydney Biennial, 2002; Gwangju Biennial, 2002; Sharjah Biennial, 2005; Athens Biennial, 2007. His works are on show in numerous institutions worldwide such as the Migros Museum, Zurich; Museo Serralves, Porto; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Fondation Cartier, Paris; Lenbachhaus, Munich; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich.
Olaf was born in Halle/Saale in 1962 and currently lives and works in Berlin.
Week 2 / Lecture (engl./ger.) – Maike Cruse
Maike Cruse is a curator based in Berlin. If you come along an up and running art institution, be sure, Maike Cruse is or was involved somehow! She was press officer of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the Berlin Biennale. She co-initiated the Galerie im Regierungsviertel, a mobile exhibition platform, and the renowned Forgotten Bar in Kreuzberg, which was a stunning social and curatorial experiment. From 2008 to 2011 she was communication manager at Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach. Now she is the artistic director of abc art berlin contemporary, that takes place in Berlin every autumn.
Maike Cruse has studied Art in London.
Week 2 / Tour (engl./ger.) – Marc Glöde
Marc Glöde is a curator, film expert and art critic. He received his PhD in film studies from the Free University Berlin and taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, The Free University of Berlin, and is at this moment an Assistant Professor at the ETH Zürich. At the FU Berlin he was part of the research project “Culture of Performativity” on the subject “Synaesthesia effects: kinetic and coloured dimension of the cinema”.
Since the midst of the 1990s he worked as a curator. He was invited curator for the Experimenta Festival 2007 in Mumbai/Bangalore and curated the exhibition “STILL/MOVING/STILL – The History of Slide Projection in the Arts” in Knokke/Belgium. His most recent curatorial projects include “Light Camera Action” and “About Painting” (art berlin contemporary, Berlin 2010 & 2011), “(Re-)locating the Self” (Y8, Hamburg), and “Filmic Reflections on the Document” (Videonale, Bonn). Since 2008 he has been curator of Art Film, Art Basel's film program. His writing has been published in Fantom, Texte zur Kunst, Parkett, Art in America and X-TRA Magazine, among others. His book “Farblicht. Räume.”, published by Fink Verlag, Munich, is forthcoming in 2013. Marc Glöde lives and works in Berlin.
Week 2 / Lecture (engl./ger.) – Ivo Wessel
Ivo Wessel is a software developer, author and collector based in Berlin. He passionately collects photography, concept- and videoart as well as books. Together with Jan Winkelmann he created EYEOUT, an art guide-app, which has been produced for the Gallery Weekend Berlin, the art forum and other occasions. He takes part in conferences on mobile technology and writes for the magazines “Mobile Developer” and “Weave”. Together with Gerd Harry Lybke he founded “e-art-apps”, i.e. art-apps for the iPhone. He is member of the Jury of the AppArtAward of the ZKM Karlsruhe. Together with the gallerist Olaf Stüber he regularly curates and shows “Videoart at Midnight” in the movie theater Babylon in Berlin.
Even though Ivo Wessel is famous for being a bibliophilic, we hope that giving a lecture in a former library with empty bookshelves will not be too much of a disturbance for him. First there was the thought; then there came the book. A relieve hopefully.
He will speak about the digital and mobile impact on art for curators, artists, collectors and visitors; in which way apps is the new material for emerging artists and how all these different groups can benefit from the new possibilities of app store publishing worldwide.