Olga Holzschuh

The artistic practice of Olga Holzschuh (lives and works in Cologne and Düsseldorf) is characterized by an intensive examination of the aesthetic, social and psychological effects of technological innovations. Her photographs, sculptures and performances are closely intertwined with questions of physical presence and index. The transitory moment forms the core of her work. This is evident not only in her performances - in which she creates situations that trace the control practices of emotions - but also in her work with shape-shifting materials such as soap, photographic solutions and metal.

“Hello.

I am Olga. I'm an artist and I work with photography, sculpture and performance within installations. I would say that the core of my work is the transitory moment. My background is in photography, experimental and staged photography. After graduating from art school, I distanced myself a little from that. From classical photography, perhaps also from staged photography, and started to think of photography in a much broader sense. What interests me most here is the trace, the imprint, the index, if you like. But above all the resulting empty spaces and the loss in the process.”

“To name one example: The transfer print from the photograph to the material of the glycerine soap. Here, I am particularly interested in the materiality of the glycerine soap, which is like a kind of skin layer or has skin-like properties, which also sweats and deforms depending on the situation. But the transfer process itself is also exciting for me. Washing out and peeling off the paper, squeezing off the pigment layer - what then remains in the glycerine soap and the moment when I have to keep it away from the water, so to speak, so that this pigment layer doesn't disappear even more. So this interesting performative moment: “When does something disappear?” or “How much can I control so that it disappears? And how much can I just leave it to chance?”.

“I have just returned from a residency at the Kunststiftung NRW in Istanbul, the Galata Residency. There I researched how floral embroidery can be understood as an archive, along the lines of flora, which is also linked to identity. It's not just about migration or feminist issues of handicrafts, but also about the flora as a kind of archive. I am now also going to another residency in Japan with this question in mind. The Kamogawa residency at the Goethe-Institut in Kyoto.”

Artist Info

Olga Holzschuh

Website
Instagram