ANASTASIA SAMOYLOVA AND OLAF METZEL

We are pleased to announce a double exhibition by photographer Anastasia Samoylova and sculptor Olaf Metzel.

In their works, both Samoylova and Metzel negotiate current political issues and provoke reflection on socio-cultural questions.

In her artistic practice, Anastasia Samoylova employs strategies of commercial photography to illuminate the interface between staged perception and reality. In this visual study Floridas, the artist depicts the Sunshine State in all its contradictions as both a shimmering fantasy and a subtropical dystopia, marked as much by deep political division as by the effects of the climate crisis. FloodZone is an extensive photographic project that explores the environmental change in America’s coastal cities. In the process, her works recount colorful emptiness, bombastic materialism, and cultural artificiality to reveal nothing less than existential threats and bleakness.

Olaf Metzel’s expansive sculptures combine formal aesthetic questions with social observations from the present. The artist became known for sensational works in public space. With an eye for current socio-political issues and a focus on the complexity of German history and culture, these not infrequently led to controversial discussions. In addition to these monumental public works, Metzel has created a diverse sculptural oeuvre, including folding, crumpling, compressing, and bending aluminum plates imprinted with words and images. The deformation and destruction serve him here both as an artistic means and as an aesthetic provocation.

Anastasia Samoylova (*1984) is an American artist whose artistic practice moves between documentary photography and studio work, exploring concepts such as environmental protection, consumer behavior, and the picturesque.

Currently, the artist has two institutional solo exhibitions: “Floridas” at C/O Berlin (until May 4th) and “Image Cities” at KBr Fundación MAPFRE in Barcelona (until May 14th). The exhibition will then travel to Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid. Most recently, the artist had solo exhibitions at the Eastman Museum, Rochester, US | Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, US | The Photographer’s Gallery, London, UK | Kunst Haus Wien, AT | History Miami Museum, Miami, US | Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Locle, CH.

In 2021, Samoylova received the first KBr Photo Award from Fundación MAPFRE and was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize in 2022. Her works are included in collections such as Pérez Art Museum, Miami, US | George Eastman Museum, New York, US | The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, US | Museum of Fine Arts, Le Locle, CH | Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, US | Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen, DE | Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, DE.

Her published monographs include Image Cities (Fundación MAPFRE/Hatje Cantz, 2023), Floridas (Steidl, 2022), and FloodZone (Steidl, 2019).

Olaf Metzel (*1952, Berlin) lives and works in Munich. He has had numerous international institutional solo exhibitions and was also a participant in documenta 8, Kassel (1987), the Skulptur Projekte Münster (1987 and 1997); Sydney Biennale (1990); Istanbul Biennale (1995 and 2017), and the Sao Paulo Biennale (2002). Sculptures in public spaces can be found in Germany, Europe, and Asia.

His works are part of the collections of the Bavarian State Painting Collection, Munich, DE | North Rhine-Westphalia Art Collection, Düsseldorf, DE | Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, DE | Museum Ludwig, Cologne, DE | Hamburger Kunsthalle, DE | Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt and Berlin, DE | Falckenberg Collection, Hamburg, DE | Hollweg Collection, Bremen, DE | Philara Collection, Düsseldorf, DE | Ackermans Collection, Düsseldorf, DE | René Block Collection, Berlin, DE | Collection for Contemporary Art of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, DE | Böckmann Collection, Berlin, DE | Munich Re Art Collection, Munich, DE | ZKM Karlsruhe, DE | Collezione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, IT | Martin Z. Margulies Collection, Miami, US, and others.