Olaf Nicolai
I never look at you from the place
from which you see me
April 27 – May 27, 2023
Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin
The exhibition "I never look at you from the place from which you see me" by Olaf Nicolai presents a series of photographic works taken in June 2022 in Olympia, Greece.
The motifs are the landscape and the historical facilities of Olympia - but in anamorphic and floating distortions. They were created using a parabolic mirror - the mirror used to IGNITE the Olympic Flame by the sun's rays.
Images that are mostly associated with the parabolic mirror are those of the media staging of the major event "Olympic Games". These include the lighting of the Olympic flame as well as the torch relay that has followed since 1936. These gestures, which are as symbolic today as they are taken for granted, are inscribed in the historical object "parabolic mirror," which is still used today.
The constellation in which the photographs were taken presents a paradox: Images reflected by a parabolic mirror. A mirror that was not built to reflect outward. Rather, it is meant to center rays of light inside on a focal point so that a flame can be ignited.
The exhibition shows images that can be created when the parabolic mirror is confronted with another kind of mirror, a camera, instead of a torch.
We encounter images that hallucinate sceneries of other games: "I never look at you from the place from which you see me".