AIR WANTS TO GO. DOMINIK LEJMAN

“Air Wants to Go” is a phrase borrowed from the poem “The Chess Player” by American poet Howard Altmann, describing human abandonment and transformation in relation to the world. At the same time, this phrase is the title of an exhibition devoted to the work of Dominik Lejman. Five multi-element works by the awarded Polish artist can currently be seen in the OP ENHEIM in Wrocław.

Dominik Lejman, Air Wants to Go, photo: Alicja Kielan

Dominik Lejman is an intermedia artist, a graduate of the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and the Royal College of Art in London. He is also a laureate of many Polish and foreign awards, including Berlin Art Prize 2018 in the field of visual arts, or the Passport of “Polityka” for “art that in an innovative way combines traditional forms of painting with modern media techniques.”

In Lejman’s work, the surface of an image fulfills the function of a screen, while remaining in itself a specific, defined space. “Videofrescoes” were therefore a natural consequence of the artist’s experiences with painting, the next layer of which was projection. The term “videofresco” refers to the decorative, ornamental function in relation to the building, wall and the relationship of the durability of architecture to the ephemeral nature of the projection itself. This phenomenon can be observed in the diptych that is part of the exhibition, in which Howard Altmann’s poem becomes a play of light and shadow and slowly seems to fade away.

The “Płot” artwork, which was prepared as a proposal for the Polish pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, also deserves attention. This project combines an intriguing minimalist aesthetic form with an extremely up-to-date reflection on the condition of our contemporary geo-and biopolitics. So we are dealing with something like a moving image, a video installation that takes up the entire room. A mesh unfolds endlessly along the walls, reflected in the pane opposite, surrounding the viewer with an imaginary fence. The fence refers to the convention of the net on the wall, but without closing it in terms of a formalistic discourse. There are also categories of building specific barriers, both archetypal and historical.

It can be said that Dominik Lejman’s art is based on the phenomenology of time, the entanglement of duration and repetition. The world depicted in his painting reveals a different world of duration. By combining abstract, geometric painting with the temporary video projection, Lejman enriches his painting with a narrative – a fabric and texts, “fences” of doubt between revelation and rejection, elation and fall, Elysium and prison. The artist’s aesthetics of painting, coupled with the mechanisation of projection reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp, enable the interpenetration of that which is visible and that which is not, duplications and palimpsest-like overlays, the appearance and disappearance of bodies, ghastly exposures and covers.

The projection on the facade of the OP_ENHEIM gallery building has also become an inseparable part of the exhibition. The accompanying events also include a meeting with the artist himself with the curator, Hubertus v. Amelunxen, and a lecture by Volker Diehl on the art market in the post-pandemic period.

Dominik Lejman, Air Wants to Go, photo: Alicja Kielan

Videos of both meetings can be viewed on OP ENHEIM’s Facebook profile.

The OP ENHEIM Foundation is a space for culture in Wrocław, operating as a foundation that aims to support contemporary art by developing a network of cooperation with institutions in Wrocław, Berlin and other European countries. It includes an art gallery on the first floor of a historic tenement house and a beautiful attic with a terrace overlooking the roofs of the Old Town buildings. The intimate Salon Herz also hosts cultural meetings, workshops, lectures and concerts.

Written by Anna Kwapisz

Air Wants to Go. Dominik Lejman

Curated by Hubertus v. Amelunxen

Start: October 17. 2020

End: December 16. 2020

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