Olaf Metzel

Olaf Metzel (born 1952, Berlin) is a German sculptor who studied at the Freie Universität and the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin. He has been a professor at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich since 1990, and served as its principal from 1995 to 1999. Metzel works to makesocial conditions visible in three dimensions, provoking debate on contested socio-political questions. His output spans large-scale sculpture for public space, smaller sculptural think-pieces, vigorous drawings, reliefs of bent sheet metal carrying digital prints, and installative interventions. His best-known work, '13.4.1981' (1987), is a tower of piled police barriers erected on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm, its composition drawn from Mondrian's 'Broadway Boogie Woogie'. The title refers to the date of violent protests in the city, and the piece became one of the most contested public sculptures in postwar Germany. He has shown at documenta 8, Skulptur Projekte Münster (1987 and 1997), the Sydney Biennale (1984, 1990), the Istanbul Biennale (1995, 2015) and the São Paulo Biennale (2001).