Dominik Lejman
Dominik Lejman 60 seconds It takes 60 seconds for a skydiver to free fall from the moment of leaving an airplane to the deadline of opening a parachute. Based on his unique technique of merging painting with video Lejman uses his language to focus on the tension between the individual and its environment. He works in the same manner as a magician does when daring us to see the invisible. The raw material for his work ranges from the obvious to the everyday life patterns we so readily take for granted. Lejman doesn t use any tricks or sleight of hand to make his point. Instead, he opens our imagination as if it was indeed our eyes, helping us find new ways to interpret the world we move in. He is constantly searching for new venues for expression. This is most evident in his recent body of works. Here Lejman combines his fascination with skydiving and architecture. In his 60 Seconds Cathedral (2011) piece he uses a group of 32 parachuters falling at a speed of 200 km/h to reconstruct a shape based upon his drawings of the Duran Cathedral s vaulted ceiling (northern England). During the performance in the air this stellar structure lasted only 60 seconds before the group split into its single elements. In his own words Dominik Lejman says To me all the beauty of this project lies in the ephemerality of the architectural statement created for a couple of seconds in the air by the group of performers, which reflects upon the illusion of permanence by any religious or cultural symbols and is replaced by the geometry of human relations. First human breath after birth opens up the chest like a parachute (My One, 2012). After my first jump and during the production of the 60 Seconds Cathedral, I have became fascinated by the process of folding a parachute. The process has to be precise and slow, as long as somebody s life relies on it. For real, when staged, taken out of the airfield context, the choreography of folding reminds me Japanese Noh theatre. We discover a beauty of folding gestures, the more functional and deprived of any aesthetics they are, as long as it s a question of life and death. I have asked a sky-diver to perform folding her parachute in front of my painting (Parafold, 2012-11). When painting I was aiming to layer the paint it the same way as she did the folds, to make the canvas a space for the projection of the footage of the opening up the parachute. Once again Dominik Lejman defines the gravity of his thought by the weightlessness of 60 seconds of a free fall expression or like a hit of the human body, which dissipates in 60 seconds after the death (Nothing to Add, 2011).
Yellow, 2012, acrylic on canvas and video projection, 200 200 cm Parafold, 2011-2012, acrylic on canvas 170 210 cm plus performance of folding a parachute
My One, 2012, acrylic on canvas and video projection, 195 195 cm (right page) Gliders, 2002, video mural
Big Cloud, 2011, acrylic on canvas and video projection, 200 160 cm Iron Floor (Life Feed), 2010, acrylic on canvas and video projection, 210 210 cm
Dominik Lejman Born in Gdańsk in 1969. Lives and works in Poznań and Berlin. Solo exhibitions (selected) 2012 Far Too Close, Yumiko Chiba Associates Viewing Room Shinjuku, Tokyo, Kyoto City University of Arts, Art Gallery @KCUA, Kyoto, JP 2011 Far Too Close, Żak Branicka Gallery, Berlin, DE Double Layer, European Parliament, Brussels, BE 2009 Afterparty, Żak Branicka Gallery, Berlin, DE 2007 A Natural History, Atlas Sztuki, Łódź, PL Gardens, Arsenał Gallery, Białystok, PL 2006 The Last One Turns the Light on, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, PL Conditioned Perspective, LUXE Gallery, New York, US 2005 ME-Counts:0.3s, LUXE Gallery New York, US Dominik Lejman, Vigeland Museum, Oslo, NO Dominik Lejman, MOCA, London, UK Present Perfect, Polish Institute, Düsseldorf, DE 2002 Vital Statistics, Norrtalje Konsthall, SE 2000 The Luxury of Survival, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, PL Selected group exhibitions (selected) 2011 AYT, Museum of Modern Art, Kiev, UA Here and now amnesia, Savvy Contemporary, Berlin, DE 9th Krasnoyarsk Museum Biennale, Krasnoyarsk, RU POLISH! Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, DE 2010 50 Ways to Keep Your Lover, galleri s.e, Bergen, NO 2009 Good Night and Bad Luck Art and Fear in Poland and Israel, Artists House, Tel Aviv, IL Awake and Dream, Signum, Foundation Palazzo Dona, Venice, IT abc, Art Berlin Contemporary, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, DE 2008 Still/Motion, Mie Prefectural Art Museum, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, JP Red Eye Effect, Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, PL Prague Triennale, Veletrzni Palace, Prague, CZ 2007 Video Killed the Painting Star, DOMUS ATRIUM 2002 Salamanca, ES 2006 Painting as Presence (this is not a love song), Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, DE You won t feel a thing: On Panic, Obsession, Rituality, and Anesthesia, Kunsthaus Dresden, DE Malarstwo XXI wieku, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, PL Poza, Real Art Ways, Hartford, US 2005 Egocentric, Outmoded, Immoral, Images of the Contemporary Artists, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, PL 2004 Architectures: Meta-structures of Humanity, Morphic Strategies of Exposure, Polish Pavilion, 9th International Architecture Exhibition Venice, IT Beyond The Red Horizon, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, PL, National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow Distances?, Le Plateau, Fonds Regional d Art Contemporain d Ile de-france, Paris, FR 2003 Artists in Residence, Location One, New York, US 1st Prague Biennale, National Gallery, Veletrzni Palace, Prague, CZ 2001 Re:location, OK Centrum für Gegenwartskunst, Linz, AT 2000 After the Wall: Art and Culture in Post-Communist Europe, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, DE Moderna Museet, Stockholm, SE (1999) Nothing to Add, 2011, acrylic on canvas and video projection, 150 240 cm (back cover) 60 Seconds Cathedral, 2011, video mural Lindenstr. 35, 10969 Berlin +49 30 61107375 www.zak-branicka.com mail@zak-branicka.com