ERWIN OLAF - FREEDOM. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.ERWIN OLAF - FREEDOM

The ultimate tribute to the Netherlands’ most rebellious multimedia artist: Erwin Olaf

Erwin Olaf – Freedom offers a unique insight into the work and life of Erwin Olaf (1959–2023), one of the Netherlands’ most pioneering artistic figures. Renowned for his staged, cinematic visual language and bold aesthetic, Olaf explored themes such as sexuality, transience, vulnerability, and activism throughout his career.

A tireless advocate for equal rights, Olaf captured both the beauty and the struggle of those who exist outside the norm. His final works – never before exhibited – include Self-Portrait with Lungs (2023), a profoundly personal and artistic confrontation.

Featuring powerful imagery and a wealth of previously unseen work, this book stands as a compelling tribute to an artist who redefined the medium of photography and leaves behind a legacy of beauty, resistance, and humanity. Insightful essays by leading writers provide fresh perspectives on his artistic and social significance.

With contributions from Paco Barragán, Charlotte Cotton, Jonathan Turner, Francis Hodgson, Tahrim Ramdjan, Gemma Rolls-Bentley, Hans van Manen, Taco Dibbits, Charl Landvreugd, Shirley den Hartog and others.

This book is published on the occasion of the major retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, from October 10, 2025 to March 1, 2026.

Erwin Olaf was an internationally exhibiting artist whose diverse practice centered around society’s marginalized individuals, including women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. In 2019 Olaf became a Knight of the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands after 500 works from his oeuvre were added to the collection of the Rijksmuseum. Taco Dibbits, Rijksmuseum director, called Olaf “one of the most important photographers of the final quarter of the 20th century”. In 2018, Olaf completed a triptych of monumental photographic and filmic tableaux portraying periods of seismic change in major world cities, and the citizens embraced and othered by their urban progress. Like much of his work, it is contextualized by complex race relations, the devastation of economic divisions, and the complications of sexuality. Olaf has maintained an activistic approach to equality throughout his 40-year career after starting out documenting pre-AIDS gay liberation in Amsterdam’s nightlife in the 1980s. A bold and sometimes controversial approach has earned the artist a number of prestigious collaborations, from Vogue and Louis Vuitton, to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. He served as the official portrait artist for the Dutch royal family in 2017, and designed the national side of the euro coins for King Willem-Alexander in 2013. He has been awarded the Netherlands’ prestigious Johannes Vermeer Award, as well as Photographer of the Year at the International Color Awards, and Kunstbeeld magazine’s Dutch Artist of the Year. Erwin Olaf has exhibited worldwide.