Lech Majewski: Retrospective at Zak Gallery - Berlin

Friday, 13 October 2006 22:23

BERLIN, Germany - Zak Gallery presents Lech Majewski, a decisive Polish artist whose films and video-works have earned him international recognition and success.  After the May 2006 retrospective in MoMA, New York, a large part of the exhibition is being shown in Germany.  On exhibition from 3 November until 21 December, 2006.

Majewski is an artist of many mediums. He writes and directs screenplays, operates the camera for his own films, and composes music for films.  He is a photographer, a poet and a stage designer. He is celebrated not only for his operas, but also for his avant-garde theatrical events.

The inspiration to create his works originates in very different sources and swings steadily from myth and legend to brazen reality.  Somewhere between a remorseless surrealism and the thematic of a local space, Lech Majewski’s work has created and occupied its own place.  His imaginative ability and his innate sensibility reveal themselves in the variety of his projects.

Zak Gallery shows a representative selection of his video art and photography, focusing especially on his most recent work “Blood of a Poet” (Poland, USA 2006). “Blood of a Poet” is composed of 33 short video-art pieces, each of which is a singular entity, and each of which functions within the context of a larger narrative sequence recalling the traumatic memories of a young poet whose violent father’s shadow looms over him.

Zak Gallery will exhibit not only the film as such, but also black and white photographs taken on the set of the film.  The installation of the film and the photographs together will itself be a singular work.  In addition, Zak Gallery will present photographs from five other of Majewski’s earlier films.

A retrospective of his feature films will be shown at the gallery and in the nearby cinema “Nickelodeon” (Torstrasse 216, Berlin Mitte).  A precise program will be available on the webpage www.zak-gallery.com