Erwin Olaf

Erwin Olaf
Erwin Olaf

Photographs: Erwin Olaf

Text: Alasdair Foster

Publisher: Aperture

128 pages

Pictures: 65

Year: 2008

Comments: Blue linen hardcover with picture tipped-in, 340 x 260 mm. First edition, 2008. Text in english. The photobook comes with a DVD containing a selection of five films by Erwin Olaf.

Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf's highly stylized mode of image-making offers a blend of mid-century modern and noir aesthetics, seen through a contemporary, fashion-inflected lens. In this enticing volume—the first time these three bodies of work have been presented as a whole—Olaf seduces the viewer via a mannered, restrained palette replete with faded avocado greens, golden-hued oranges, and subtle lilacs.

Each richly colored and sleekly composed image offers a sly reinterpretation of Norman Rockwell-like iconography and characters, manifesting a nostalgia that both burlesques and wryly celebrates America of the 1950s and '60s. As a whole, the material investigates what critic Jonathan Turner defines as "Olaf's recent fascination with the visual representation of such emotions as loss, loneliness, and quiet despair.... [He] plays games with the idea of cold reality versus cruel artifice, capturing that precise moment when innocence, hope, and joy are lost."

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