He directed the music theater piece "In Vain" by Georg Friedrich Haas at the Theater Basel. His short film "Rodakis" was invited to be part of the 58th Berlin International Film Festival in 2008. In 2015, Olaf Nicolai conducted the seven-month long performative installation "Giro” at the roof of the German Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. In 2021, his 24-hour film "MARX" was screened simultaneously in sixteen institutions worldwide. A selection of group exhibitions Olaf Nicolai was part of are DOCUMENTA 14 (2017), Venice Biennale (2015, 2005 und 2001), Berlin Biennale (2014 und 1998), Busan Biennale (2012), Thessaloniki Biennale (2011), Manifesta 7 (2008), the fourth Gwangju Biennale (Korea, 2002), Biennale Sydney (2002), “Être nature“, Fondation Cartier (Paris, 1998), “Documenta X” (Kassel, 1997). He also participated in group exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art New York, MIT / Massachusetts or the Moderna Museum Stockholm. Olaf Nicolai received the “Wilhelm-Loth-Preis“ of the city of Darmstadt (2018). Furthermore, he was awarded with the “Karl-Sczuka-Preis für Radiokunst“ in 2017 for his DOCUMENTA 14 contribution, the “Kunstpreis der Stadt Wolfsburg“ (2002) and the art price of the Böttcherstrasse in Bremen (1999). He received grants by Villa Aurora in Los Angeles (2008), the IASPIS (Stockholm, 2000), PS1 (New York, 1998) and Villa Massimo, Rome (1997/98). In 2014, he realized a memorial for persecutees by the Nazi-military at Ballhausplatz in Vienna, Austria as well as a permanent artistic interior design for the new buildings of the “Meisterhäuser Gropius and Moholy-Nagy“ at Bauhaus Dessau. From 2019 to 2022, Nicolai worked on an extensive archival and publication project "A spindleful. here. again. / Casting an Echo: Architecture of Sericulture" (in collaboration with the Silk Museum Tbilisi, the Goethe Institut and the Hau der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin), from which he also developed the work for the exhibition in Venice. Currently Olaf Nicolai lives and works in Berlin.
