Does anyone know if there is a slideshow plugin for wordpress available that allows text wrapping without modifying the css?

I don't know any plugins with that specific feature, but I did want to mention this after reading your description. You can target specific pages/posts with CSS, so you can limit text wrap to your about page. You just need to know the page ID. WordPress includes a page specific class in the body tag. It looks like this page-id-123. 123 would be your page ID.
See screenshot - http://i.imgur.com/zFldy2T.png

So you can simply do something like this:

.page-id-123 .slideshow-class { ... }

This will limit your CSS changes to the slideshow on this particular page.

I think Viktor offers the better approach, however you may want to check out Soliloquy as an alternative to NextGen. http://soliloquywp.com/

I have worked with many WordPress slideshow plugins and most of them require the CSS change for text wrapping. You can use a page specific class or id in the CSS to only affect the about page.You can have a look at this tutorial to see how you can do this: http://graphpaperpress.com/tips/change-backgrounds-colors-fonts-on-specific-pages/

I hope this helps and I'd be open for a call if you need help with anything else :)

Slideshows are meant to be used filling the total available space or at a minimum displayed as a "block" with no content to the left or right - so you'll need to apply css specifically to that page. You can do that using the following classes:

- Add the <?php body_class(); ?> if its not there already

- Inspect your about page and the classes in the body - you'll have a class with the ID, a class if there's a special template in use or possibly a class with the page slug then use it to target just the nextgen gallery inside that page.

Actually we use www.cincopa.com its very very good and may well have the functions I believe you're looking for.