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3/4/2009

Edgar Leciejewski

Parrotta Project Space, Berlin

Roland Barthes conceives photography as directly related to death and defines it as a “killing act”. Following Barthes theory, through the immobilization of the living subject in the picture, this subject undertakes a transformation from subject to object. Edgar Leciejewski appears to invert this concept. His work consists in collecting dead animals. Any trace of their past is removed as they are accurately cleaned out, analysed to be later transposed into pictures through an high definition scanner. In front of us hangs the portrait of a bird floating weightless through an apparently empty background. If we observe the picture we realize that the bird is in fact not floating nor flying. Indeed he lies lifeless on a plain surface. It recalls the sense of decay and loss that only a still life painting can inspire.

In his new works Edgar Leciejewski´ develops a new and attentive approach to the spacial context. Stinted empty walls, traces of his working process, hanging photos and drafts, enter the pictures recreating again the poetic atmosphere of a still life. The photos appear to inherit the function of a trompe l´oeil as glimpses of the artist´s studio becomes part of the exhibition´s rooms. On one hand these works seem to question the concept of photography as reproduction medium. On the other hand, they seem to suggest that photography allow us to approach reality from new perspectives.

“It does not necessarily have to do with human fallibility. Imagine somebody trying in any way to fly. His arms and his hands imitating the beating of a dove´s wings. Can we define our impossibility to fly as failure? And if yes, a failure in which sense? Where there is no chance of succeeding there can be obviously no failure.

Oh you, beloved of my 27 senses, I love you! Hello, your red dress, sawn in white crinkles, let us abandone the stage made round by the reality. Nothing to invent, no idea, no composition, no object nor a form: and yet composition, object, form, idea, picture still achieve everything. I stretch my hand on the fire and it burns: this is certainty. It means, there we see what certainty really means. Not only what the word certainty itself represents, but also, the most inner meaning of it.''

Edgar Leciejewski will take part in the group show “Matters of vanity – Still life photography from Leipzig” at the Contemporary Art Gallery Parrotta in Stuttgart on April 24th 2009.

Parrotta Project Space
Brunnestrasse 178/179 - Berlin

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