Lombard-Freid Projects is pleased to present Dan Perjovschi’s first solo show at the gallery.

Not a stranger to the American audience after last year’s marathon participation at three prestigious US museums –The Museum of Modern Art; Walker Art Center; and Nasher Museum of Art— Perjovschi returns to New York in a year of presidential elections and global unrest to contribute his views to the “big debates.”

Known for his incisive social and political commentaries translated in the medium of drawing, Perjovschi’s work has been included for the past decade in numerous biennials and major museum exhibitions around the world. Using humor and irony as a form of poetic conceptualism, Perjovschi reflects on macro-political events with a sensibility that is as finely tuned as it is pointed.

A man stands in front of an ATM machine, his finger pointing towards the keypad, his head turned around facing the surveillance camera behind him asking: You remember my pin?

It is precisely this kind of witticism that allows Perjovschi to address tough issues, frequently of political import, while managing to leave us with a smile on our faces. Whether commenting on the return of the Big Brother or the impact of the 21st century technological revolution and its effects on our lives, Perjovschi resurrects a banal moment of daily routine to a question mark open to different answers.

For this exhibition, the main gallery space is transformed into a debate room. The walls are merged into gigantic black boards covered by white chalk drawings. This medium is not new to the artist. He had made white chalk drawings on black walls before (Venice Biennial 2007, Culturgest Porto, 2007) emphasizing the ephemeral nature and the fragility of his work.

“I want my drawings to be as simple and as direct as possible […] strong, incisive comments that could be wiped away in seconds.”

The second gallery space is transformed into a Portrait Gallery, bringing together drawings on paper and canvas of hundreds of individual faces that act as a large audience. The crowds of faces are arranged in grids of compulsive repetitiveness and disquieting order. These are works from the mid-nineties that Perjovschi brings into the spotlight after a long period of gestation in his studio. Placed within the context of the main gallery’s installation, they are not only a necessary partner in this debate but a timeless audience for what is yet to come. Executed between 1994-97 as part of a larger series titled “Anthroprogramming”, these drawings underscore the dichotomy between individual and mass identity. The relevance of this title today is proof of art’s capacity to reinvent itself.

Dan Perjovschi will participate in the upcoming 16th Sydney Biennial: Revolutions – Forms that Turn.