“Art is my tool to explore freedom and my weapon to defend it.”
Erwin Olaf
A photographer of the body and intimacy, Erwin Olaf — born Erwin Olaf Springveld (1959–2023) — was a complete artist. His meticulously staged images, conceived like film sets or classical paintings, celebrated every form of freedom. Throughout his life, he upheld a vision of the world that balanced extravagance and activism, sensitivity and melancholy, establishing himself as one of the most renowned Dutch photographers and artists of his generation. His sudden death in 2023, at the age of 64, left behind a monumental body of work that continues to mark contemporary photography.
This significant retrospective, the first since his death, reveals many of the artist’s lesser-known facets and demonstrates how his art transcended genres, exploring every artistic form in pursuit of total mastery. The exhibition includes never-before-seen works — videos, sculptures, press photographs, and personal archives — unveiling the creative energy that drove him: a celebration of the body, the defense of identity, the freedom to be, and the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.
The exhibition “Erwin Olaf – Freedom” and its accompanying 384-page catalogue span the entirety of his oeuvre, from his beginnings in photojournalism in the 1980s to his emergence as a studio photographer, his deep commitment to LGBTQ+ rights, and his more contemplative, melancholic series such as “Grief” (2007), “Berlin” (2012), “Shanghai” (2017), and “Im Wald” (2020), as well as unfinished works created shortly before his death.
Curator Charl Landvreugd spoke with Blind about how he sought to create a complete portrait of both the artist and the man.
This is the first retrospective of Erwin Olaf’s work since his passing in 2023. How did you approach this tribute?
I didn’t want to curate a simple photography exhibition but one that captured the full scope of the artist he was. I was searching for the image-maker, not just the photographer. I wanted to understand what truly motivated him — that driving force of personal freedom. That’s why we called the exhibition Freedom. I wanted to show how he built himself, how he became the Erwin Olaf we all know.
“There’s something of Caravaggio, Bellini, and even Caspar David Friedrich in his images”
The exhibition reveals an unknown side of the artist: his early black-and-white photojournalism from the 1980s. Was that a discovery for you as well?
Completely. It was a discovery for everyone, even for Erwin Olaf’s own studio, which had no idea these photos existed. Many of these negatives had disappeared and were found thanks to former assistants, rescued from forgotten storage. In these documentary photographs, with their strong photojournalistic aesthetic, we can already see his distinctive eye. He was very gifted in that genre but chose to follow his own path — one closer to Robert Mapplethorpe’s, though ultimately going beyond him.
For instance, in the series “Bad Clothing,” created for a magazine — it was never intended as an artwork but as an editorial commission — if you look at the framing, the composition, the lighting, you can already see that it’s pure Olaf. There are more than 40,000 negatives from just his journalistic period. I also learned from his studio that, knowing he was dying, Erwin Olaf classified all his archives himself: category A, category B, and “to destroy.” There is still so much left to discover about his work.
Erwin Olaf was known as a perfectionist and a photographer of the body and intimacy. How did you present this central theme of his work?
One of the rooms in the exhibition is entirely devoted to skin. The idea was to show his reflection on studio work — the lights, the reflections, the textures. He loved every type of body but had a particular preference for strong, muscular figures, saying they created the most beautiful shadows.
“Are his creations photographs? Paintings? Still lifes? He deliberately blurs the lines.”
Erwin Olaf also produced many still lifes: flowers, details of bodies… An entire exhibition could be dedicated solely to this theme. His work is deeply influenced by art history and the great masters: many of his creations reference Rembrandt. We also find the primary colors—red, blue, yellow—of Mondrian. There are also echoes of Caravaggio, Bellini, and Caspar David Friedrich in Erwin Olaf’s work… In fact, are his creations photographs? Paintings? Still lifes? He deliberately blurs the lines.
From his participation in AIDS awareness campaigns to his advocacy for LGBTQ+ and minority rights, the exhibition also shows that his commitment to freedom was inseparable from his art.
He belonged to a generation that still had to fight for queer rights. Younger generations today tend to believe these rights have always existed, but they are barely twenty years old. Erwin Olaf watched their erosion with concern — that’s what angered him most. He was deeply opposed to religious and political dogma alike. He embodied the struggle for freedom — for everyone, of every body, of every gender. It was a personal fight, shaped by his own experience of seeking acceptance as a gay man in society.
“He embodied the struggle for freedom for all, for all bodies, for all genders.”
The exhibition “Erwin Olaf – Freedom” can be seen at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, until March 1, 2026. The books Erwin Olaf – Freedom is published by Hannibal Books and available for €69.95.
