Roman Lipski
When Roman Lipski emigrated to West Berlin in 1989 he was just twenty years old – a shy young man from the small town of Nowy Dwór in the north of Poland. Lipski was running away from hopelessness and an unavoidable training at a technical college. He wanted to flee from the confines of a small town and realise his dreams in the big wide world. He had scarcely arrived in Berlin when he took up a paintbrush in his hand for the very first time at the age of 21. Today he is an important artist whose work has been shown in many exhibitions in Germany and Poland. His works can be seen in galleries and museums all over the world and even enrich the collection in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
His arrival in West Berlin and his acceptance into the Federal Republic of Germany was typical of the procedure of integration during the major wave of immigration from Poland in the late 1980s. Polish emigrants were given a routing slip in the emergency welcome centre in the Berlin suburb of Marienfelde, the so-called Lager or “Lagier”. On this were noted the various stations in the registration process, all of which had to be officially stamped by the respective authorities. Everything from the German Red Cross to cross-questioning by American soldiers had to be stamped on the small slip. Following this the emigrants were allocated to hostels, had to attend courses in German and wait for decisions from the authorities. But something marked out Lipski from the majority of the emigrants. It was his long maturing decision to become a painter. So one day he summoned up all his courage and asked his German teacher how to become a painter in Berlin. A painting course in the adult education centre in Kreuzberg provided him with his first experiences in the pictorial arts. He then moved on to study at the Berlin art school “Die Etage”, began to make contact with the Berlin artists’ world and experience the international, multicultural life of a major city. This was the beginning of many years of self experience and self-discovery as a painter and artist. Here he was helped by a turn in world history: the fall of the Berlin Wall. In East Berlin Lipski finally found the empty space needed by every artist. For many of the apartments and houses had been abandoned almost overnight and stood open for him and his artist colleagues. Somewhat later, in the middle of the 1990s, and equally in search of free space for artistic activities, Polish artists and creative Poland met up in Berlin to write a leaflet called the “Small Manifesto of Polish Failures”. Roman Lipski was in at the birth of what was to become the “Club of Polish Failures”; in his capacity as an actor and set designer for the theatre ensemble “Babcia Zosia” (Oma Sophia); as a member of the satirical radio programme “Gaulojzes Golana”; and above all as one of the editors of the magazine “Kolano” (The Knee), where he was also a writer and graphic artist.
Roman Lipski regards himself as a Berlin painter. He only links his Polish origins with his childhood and his family. Today he is an out-and-out European with Polish foundations and a Berlin superstructure. At the moment he is living and working in the Berlin suburb of Schöneberg.
His pictures tell of the tensions at the interface of the natural and human worlds. They portray landscapes scarred by human hands and activities. They reflect the atmosphere that has arisen around these interfaces. The thing that irritates and unsettles viewers is the “third plan” behind the objects and even behind the background. For anyone who has ever travelled across Poland by car or train, everything seems to be familiar. You recognise the houses with their grey damaged facades, the endless rows of electricity pylons and the meandering heating pipes. You also recognise the trees and bushes growing wildly along the roadsides and railway tracks. The difference is that, in Lipski’s works, they all add up to a threatening setting. Sunk in strong colours and powerful contrasts the motifs have the effect of a whispered scream.
Adam Gusowski, February 2016
Solo exhibitions:
2015
The German Embassy, Warsaw, Poland
2014
Atlas Sztuki, Łódź (Lodz), Poland
Kraszewski-Museum, Dresden,
MuzeumNarodowe w Szczecinie (National Museum in Stettin), Poland
2013
Arte Giani, Frankfurt am Main,
Polnisches Institut Berlin,
Sophisticated Art, Munich
Galerie Ralf Dellert, Munich
2012
Kunst 12 Zürich, Arte Giani, Zürich, Switzerland
The Polish Institute Düsseldorf
2011
Galeria Stefan Szydlowski, Warsaw, Poland,
Schloss Genshagen (Stiftung Genshagen, Berlin-Brandenburgisches Institut für Deutsch-Französische Zusammenarbeit in Europa)
Artparis 2011, Paris, France
Kunstraum ARS – Akademie für Recht, Steuern & Wirtschaft, Vienna, Austria
2010
Atlas Sztuki, Łódź, Poland
2009
Galerie Birgit Ostermeier, Berlin
Kunstverein Lippe - Lippische Gesellschaft für Kunst, Detmold
2008
The Polish Institute, Berlin
Galerie Birgit Ostermeier, Berlin
2005
Galeria Muz 13, Szczecin (Stettin), Poland
Group exhibitions:
2013
ON 'ALIENATION/ ESTRANGEMENT' Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Instanbul, Turkey “Schöne Landschaft – Bedrohte Natur. Alte Meister im Dialog mit zeitgenössischer Kunst”, Kunsthalle Osnabrück
Andratx Open III, Centro Cultural Andratx, Majorca, Spain
2012
Mit I Melancholia, Galeria BWA w Jeleniej Górze (Hirschberg), Poland
Interior Visions: Selections from the Collection, Colby Museum of Art, Waterville, ME USA “Festhalle”, Thomas Hillig und Roman Lipski, dorisberlin, Berlin
Mit I Melancholia, Galeria Bielska BWA, Bielsko-Biała (Bielitz-Biala), Poland
Berlino come New York, Stefan Hoenerloh - Andrea Chiesi - Roman Lipski Galleria Rubin, Milan, Italy
A Sense of Place: Landscapes from Monet to Hockney, bgfa, Las Vegas, USA
MythandMelancholy, MWW - Wrocław (Breslau), Poland
Sammlung Marx. Eine Auswahl, Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie (National Museum in Stettin), Poland
2011
Nowe Tendencje w Malarstwie Polskim 2, BWA Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Poland
Kunst 11 Zürich, Arte Giani, Zürich, Switzerland
art.fair Köln, Cologne
Sammlung Marx. Eine Auswahl, Atlas Sztuki, Łódź (Lodz), Poland
Polish! Contemporary Art from Poland, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
The Changing Soil: Contemporary Landscape Painting, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
2010
Beijing Biennale, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Nagoya, Japan
Polnische Malerei aus der Sammlung Marx, Polish Institute Berlin
Arco, Madrid, Spain
2009
Wir Berliner / My Berlińczycy, Märkisches Museum & Ephraim Palais, Berlin
2008
Supernatural, Centro Cultural Andratx, Majorca, Spain
2041 - Unknown Works Collected by Erich Marx, Artnews Projects, Berlin
2007
“A Poisoned Source - Polish Contemporary Art in a Post-Romantic Landscape”, in the Muzeum Narodowe (Nationalmuseum) Szczecin, Poland and Latvijas Nacionālais mākslas muzejs (Latvian National Art Museum), Riga, Lithuania
Another Selection, Elgiz Museum, Istanbul, Turkey
2006
Galeria Sektor, GCK Katowice (Kattowitz), Poland
2005
Die Verdammten im Haus Schwarzenberg, Galerie Neurotitan, Berlin
New Acquisitions, Muzeum Sztuki Wspolczesnej (Museum für Gegenwartskunst), Szczecin (Stettin), Poland
2004
20. Festival of contemporary painting of Poland, Zamek Książąt Pomorskich, Szczecin (Stettin), Poland
Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
