Olaf Nicolai is a German conceptual artist who uses diverse media and materials, objects and forms to stimulate processes of reflection. He lives and works in Berlin.

Nicolai grew up in Karl-Marx-Stadt and studied German studies from 1983 to 1988, before earning his doctorate with the thesis Geste zwischen Expression und Kalkül. Zur Poetik der Wiener Gruppe at the University of Leipzig. Since the early 1990s, he has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions at major exhibition spaces for contemporary art such as Documenta X in 1997 and Venice Biennales 49 and 51 (2001 and 2005). Nicolai has received numerous grants and awards including: Villa Massimo in Rome 1998; Botho-Graef-Preis in 1996; The Prize of the Böttcherstraße Bremen 1999; and in 2002, the Kunstpreis Junge Stadt sieht junge Kunst der Stadt Wolfsburg.