Olaf Nicolai, MUNDUS TOTUS, 2009, Pair of gold rings. Courtesy Serkan Taycan.
Olaf Nicolai is involved in deciphering and closely and attentively reading nature, languages and systems. He has designed an (unrealised) bus line for Liverpool, and distributed publicity for a forthcoming meteor shower. Nicolai’s art is mostly conceptual in nature and is often characterised by (socio) political references, in which multiple antipodal socialist and capitalist, hedonist and idealist aspects merge and even overlap.
Olaf Nicolai’s work MUNDUS TOTUS is a Journeys with No Return commission. Each 21.4 carat gold ring is engraved with the words: MUNDUS TOTUS EXILIUM EST which read ‘the whole world is a foreign land’, a quote from Hugh of St. Victor from the 12th Century. The rings where manufactured for each particular owner matched to the size of their ring finger.
Nicolai was born in Halle, Germany and lives and works in Berlin. He has shown at the Venice Biennial (2001 and 2005) and at major international exhibitions including Centro Cultural Banco de Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, International Sharjah Biennale, Sharjah, Berlin Biennale and Documenta X 1997, Kassel and has been selected for residencies from IASPIS Stockholm (2000) and PS1, New York (1998). He was part of the Royal Academy GSK Contemporaries in 2009.