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Opening - Olaf Nicolai - "As Strange to Myself as Possible ..."

Olaf Nico­lai – «As Strange to Myself as Pos­si­ble …»

Loca­tion: Kur­thea­ter Baden, Park­strasse 20, 5400 Baden

The Kur­thea­ter Baden beco­mes the stage for a spe­cial artis­tic inter­ven­tion: inter­na­tio­nally renow­ned con­cep­tual artist Olaf Nico­lai pres­ents his new work «As Strange to Myself as Pos­si­ble …» on the roof of the Sachs-pavi­lion behind the theatre.

The point of depar­ture is a quote from the auto­bio­gra­phy of German play­w­right and author Heiner Müller, which beco­mes the gui­ding motif of the piece: «Until my death, I must live with my con­tra­dic­tions, as strange to myself as pos­si­ble.»

Inspi­red by a little-known his­to­ri­cal link bet­ween Heiner Müller and the Kur­thea­ter Baden, Olaf Nico­lai explo­res themes such as estran­ge­ment, trans­for­ma­tion, and iden­tity – cen­tral issues for a spa town in flux. The pavi­lion, with its subtle light instal­la­tion, beco­mes a silent prot­ago­nist, visi­ble only from the out­side. In this way, the park itself turns into a stage, and space beco­mes reflec­tion.

The rarely ack­now­led­ged link bet­ween Müller and the Kur­thea­ter is the basis for the work: in 1985, 2000, and 2002, his plays Phil­ok­tet, Heiner Müller Evening, and The Mis­sion were per­for­med here. A com­me­mo­ra­tive photo of Müller with actress and cele­bra­ted Brecht inter­pre­ter Vera Oel­schle­gel inspi­red Nicolai’s con­cept of inscrib­ing the pavi­lion as a ​“sub­ject” into the ​“text” of the park – making visi­ble the theme of estran­ge­ment in a spa and indus­trial loca­tion in tran­si­tion.

Born in 1962 in Halle an der Saale, Olaf Nico­lai is one of Germany’s most distin­gu­is­hed con­cep­tual artists. After stu­dy­ing German lite­ra­ture in Leip­zig, Vienna and Buda­pest (PhD, 1992), he shifted his focus to visual art and now lives and works in Berlin. His works have been shown at docu­menta X (1997) and in the German Pavi­lion at the Venice Bien­nale (2001, 2005, 2015). They are part of inter­na­tio­nal coll­ec­tions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Fried­rich Chris­tian Flick Coll­ec­tion in Berlin.

This pro­ject is a col­la­bo­ra­tion with the Kur­thea­ter Baden.