Betrachtet man Dominik Langs Entwicklung von seiner bahnbrechenden Arbeit Sleeping City, die 2011 bei der 54. Biennale von Venedig gezeigt wurde, bis zu A Girl with a Pigeon, die 2015 im Monash University Museum of Art in Melbourne zu sehen war, fällt einem ein veränderter Umgang mit dem Nachlass seines Vaters, Jiří Lang, auf. Im Zentrum beider Projekte steht eine Skulptur: Jiří Langs modernistisches Werk aus den späten 1950er-Jahren, A Girl with a Pigeon. Jede der Installationen verfolgt aber einen anderen Ansatz im Umgang mit diesem Werk. In Venedig hatte der Künstler Fragmente der Skulptur seines Vaters in zwei Schaukästen ausgestellt. Wenn man die Installation aus einem bestimmten Winkel betrachtete, war es, als ob man das Werk in seiner Ganzheit sehen würde. In der Ausstellung in Melbourne fügte er die zwei Teile zusammen und präsentierte sie in einem Schaukasten, der diesmal offen war (zuvor waren die Schaukästen geschlossen), damit die Figur des Mädchens in den Raum hinaustreten konnte. Das Mädchen betrachtet die Taube aus einer Distanz. Es füttert sie. Es sucht den Vogel, als er sich unter dem Dach versteckt.
Das Mädchen und die Taube sitzen sich an einem Tisch gegenüber. Sie schlafen gemeinsam auf einem Bett ein. Die im Originalwerk sitzende Figur des Mädchens wurde als Vorlage verwendet, um mehrere Gipsabdrücke in unterschiedlichen Positionen und mit verschiedenen Gesten herzustellen. Wir sehen das Mädchen sitzend, stehend, kniend, liegend. Wir betrachten es mit herabhängenden Armen, mit einer Hand hinter seinem Rücken, an einen Tisch gestützt, gegen eine Wand gelehnt. Oft sind die Abdrücke in Teile zerlegt: Die Hand, auf die das schlafende Mädchen seinen Kopf gelegt hat, ist in drei Teilen gebrochen, und sogar die Figur, die scheinbar natürlich aufrecht steht, hat einen tiefen Riss in ihrem Bauch – eine Folge des „Zurechtbiegens“. Die trostlose, todgeweihte Aura des Mädchens mit der Taube und die verschiedenen Abdrücke scheinen sich auf paradoxe Weise zu ergänzen. Auf den ersten Blick erinnert uns die Wiederholung und die räumliche Isolation der Gipsfiguren vielleicht an minimalistische Arbeiten aus den 1960er-Jahren. Obwohl uns Lang figurative Arbeiten und keine „spezifischen Objekte“ zeigt, hat deren Bedeutung, wie im Minimalismus, eine nach außen gerichtete Neigung und wird von den BetrachterInnen mitgestaltet.
Text: Karel Císař / Übersetzung: Mandana Taban
Dominik Lang’s development from his groundbreaking Sleeping City, presented at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, to A Girl with a Pigeon, presented 2015 at the Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne,we need to highlight a difference in his handling of the estate of his father, Jiří Lang. Both projects centre on one sculpture – Jiří Lang’s modernist A Girl with a Pigeon from the late 1950s – but the approaches adopted in the two installations are distinct from one another. In Venice, the artist placed fragments of his father’s sculpture in two glass showcases, which when viewed from a certain angle allowed the work to be seen as an integral whole; in the Melbourne exhibition, he has joined the two parts in a single showcase, leaving the glass cube open (previously it was closed), so that the figure of the girl can descend into the exhibition space. The girl watches the pigeon from a distance. She feeds it. She looks for the bird as it escapes to the ceiling. She and the pigeon sit face-to-face at a table. They fall asleep together on a bed. The figure, originally seated, is used to produce the mould for several plaster casts in modified positions and with changes of gesture.
We see the girl sitting, standing, kneeling, lying. We watch her, with her hands falling freely along her torso, with one hand behind her back, propped against a table, propped against the wall. Often the casts are split into segments: the hand, which the sleeping girl has under her head, is fragmented into three, and even the seemingly natural upright figure has a deep rift in her belly, a consequence of the ‘righting’ procedure. The disconsolate, moribund character of the girl with a pigeon is paradoxically complemented by the numerous casts. At first glance, the repetition and the spatial insulation of the plaster figures might remind us of minimalist works of the 1960s. Even though Lang presents us with figural works rather than ‘specific objects’, their significance – as in minimalism – has an outward bent and is co-constituted by the viewer.
Text: Karel Císař
1980 geboren in Prag | born in Prague
Studied in the Spatial Art studio of Jiři Přihoda at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
Dominik Lang’s development from his groundbreaking Sleeping City, presented at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, to A Girl with a Pigeon, presented 2015 at the Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne,we need to highlight a difference in his handling of the estate of his father, Jiří Lang. Both projects centre on one sculpture – Jiří Lang’s
modernist A Girl with a Pigeon from the late 1950s – but the approaches adopted in the two installations are distinct from one another. In Venice, the artist placed fragments of his father’s sculpture in two glass showcases, which when viewed from a certain angle allowed the work to be seen as an integral whole; in the Melbourne exhibition, he has
joined the two parts in a single showcase, leaving the glass cube open (previously it was closed), so that the figure of the girl can descend into the exhibition space. The girl watches the pigeon from a distance. She feeds it. She looks for the bird as it escapes to the ceiling. She and the pigeon sit face-to-face at a table. They fall asleep together on a bed.
The figure, originally seated, is used to produce the mould for several plaster casts in modified positions and with changes of gesture. We see the girl sitting, standing, kneeling, lying. We watch her, with her hands falling freely along
her torso, with one hand behind her back, propped against a table, propped against the wall. Often the casts are split into segments: the hand, which the sleeping girl has under her head, is fragmented into three, and even the seemingly
natural upright figure has a deep rift in her belly, a consequence of the ‘righting’ procedure. The disconsolate, moribund character of the girl with a pigeon is paradoxically complemented by the numerous casts. At first glance, the repetition
and the spatial insulation of the plaster figures might remind us of minimalist works of the 1960s. Even though Lang presents us with figural works rather than ‘specific objects’, their significance – as in minimalism – has an outward bent and is co-constituted by the viewer.
Text: Karel Císař
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