Olaf Metzel (* 1952 born in Berlin) counts amoung the most rekown artists in Germany today. His multifold oeuvre encompasses large public sculpture, complex and subtle smaler figures and portraits, drawing, reliefs of twisted silk screenprints on thin metall plattes and installative intervention pieces.
Since the early 1980s, Metzel has participated in the documenta in Kassel and numerous international exhibitions. Works of his are collected both in public and privare collections in Germany, Europe and the USA.
By often dealing with sociological, intercultural and political issuses, the artist positions his work right in the middle of public debates. To him, open discussion and challenging the allegedly self understood is the natural habitat of art today. Olaf Metzel belongs to the small group of contemporary artists who appeal both to the expert and the general audience.

What is new and special about Olaf Metzel´s artstic approach could be called „performative sculpture“. The artist always reacts to the concrete architectual, social or political surrounding into which he places his works. His sculptural interventions and the surrounding space or situation enter into an intensive dialogue. Through this, Metzel´s works evoke all kinds of social, urban, religious, historical and discursive contexts in the viewer´s mind. With Metzel, artistic production is always provocation – in a very literal sence: evoking a more acute consciousness on the viewer´s side about the position from which she or he looks at a piece by Metzel.

curated by Matthias Winzen