Andersens

Daniel Lergon - "K"

13 Jan - 17 Mar 2007

DANIEL LERGON
"K"
13 Jan - 31 Mar 2007

ANDERSEN_S Contemporary is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in Denmark of Berlin based German artist, Daniel Lergon.
The artist (b. 1978) graduated last year from the University of Arts, Berlin after studying under Lothar Baumgarten.

The exhibition gets its name from the abbreviation denoting black in the four-color printing process, CMYK. What distinguishes this key color, black, is its absorption of all light. While color is viewable through the partial reflection/absorption of light, black is unique in that it absorbs all light, and thus negates the possibility of color through reflection. In other words, when viewing something that is black, one is viewing an excessive absorption of light: the negation of color.

In his work, Daniel Lergon can be described as negotiating the act and definition of painting. For his exhibition at ANDERSEN_S, the artist explores the receptive properties of light and pushes the boundaries of the visual spectrum of color. The exhibition continues his painterly investigation of the physical characteristics of light, and makes visible that which is not.

Entering the gallery space, one is met with two large paintings on opposing walls. It is not, however, the scale of these works which fills the space of the gallery, but their interaction. On intensely black surfaces, the artist has painted transparent lacquer. The gesture appears quick, blink-of-the-eye, almost accidental: forming figures from the fantastic that appear frozen in an instant, and remain without question nonrepresentational. The absorptive quality of the black surface is transformed by these painterly gestures: they reflect available light, mirror the viewer in the exhibition space, and procure an element of flux in the compositions. The act lends the work dynamism: producing, through reflection, a changing light upon the depth of the black field.

In his recent solo exhibition in Germany, Daniel Lergon engaged himself in a documentation of the visible spectrum of light and the boundaries of the color spectrum. In Copenhagen, the artist goes a step further: light is not broken down and reflected in the depiction of color, but absorbed and thrown back from a negation of black. Light emanates from the surface of the canvas, is mirrored and swallowed up again. The paintings are left untitled, discouraging a narrative response. The work, however, captures a world of fantastic forms, calling to mind that which is a glimpse.
 

Tags: Lothar Baumgarten, Daniel Lergon