Il Diario del Vento / Wind Diary

Il Diario del Vento / Wind Diary is the artist's book published on the occasion of “GIRO”, Olaf Nicolai's contribution to the German Pavilion of the 56th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale Arte di Venezia, 2015. For the entire duration of the Biennale, three people resided on the roof of the German Pavilion. Unseen by visitors they carried out a mysterious task, operating a shadow economy under the blazing sun. The performers were only visible from time to time, when they step towards the edge of the roof to throw boomerangs. They sought the most suitable trajectory at which to throw the object and its ideal shape for this purpose. They produce the boomerangs in a workshop, the vague contours of which can be discerned only from a distance.
“GIRO” derives its tension from this dialectic interaction between the exposure and concealment of the actors, from the functionality of their activity and the aesthetic dimension of their choreography. Nicolai's action is also a meditation on forms of economy—the artistic artefacts that are produced as part of the action escape the fate of being immediately transformed into profitable art objects. Instead, a number of the finished articles finds its way to street hawkers each week, another of the town's shadow economies.
Additionally, the book contains seven special fold-out maps, documenting the wind conditions on selected days. These maps are also available as an unfolded limited edition backed on linen.