Olaf Holzapfel’s works bridge sculpture, painting, and architecture, traditional craft and contemporary art, nature and culture, the virtual and the real. Born in Dresden, in former East Germany, the Berlin-based artist has long been interested in borders and boundaries—the purposes they serve (overt or hidden) and how to overcome them. Neither open or closed, denying any singular state or definition, his fluid, “interstitial” constructions—temporary and semi-permanent installations/shelters realized in wood, reeds, and straw—follow the inherent properties of their materials to structure tactile, imaginative forms and spaces of possibility that draw on and redefine age-old vernacular languages.
Intensive engagement with raw natural materials from across Europe and beyond is central to Holzapfel’s practice, as is collaboration. He works with artisans and craftspeople from around the world, including weavers from the Wichí community in Argentina’s Gran Chaco, carpenters from Lower Saxony, and shrine masters in Japan. Installed indoors and out, his poetic and mysterious works evince a deep sense of time, understanding, and “rightness.”
Robert Preece: I’m fascinated by your use of materials, forms, and natural settings. Housing in Amplitude (2014–17), your collaboration with Sebastián Preece (no relation to me), seems a good place to start the discussion. You moved to the extreme south of Chile and created a number of site-specific projects, building wooden gates, fences, and shelters. You worked with farmers, using local tools and a variety of techniques and building styles. What inspired this multi-part project about labor, land, and the content of space, and what was important about the site?
Olaf Holzapfel: For Housing in Amplitude, Sebastián Preece and I realized several installations with farmers, carpenters, and also a troubadour. . .
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