Roman Lipski

I met Roman Lipski in Darłowo in September last year, during the symposium 300 Years of Łódź Kaliska. Before the exhibition at Atlas Sztuki, we met twice: the artist visited Łódź at the end of November last year, and at the beginning of May this year I visited him in Berlin. In the German capital, he welcomed me into his combined home and studio in an old post-industrial building on Feurigstrasse in the Schöneberg district. I had the impression that everything in it was subordinated to the guiding principle of the house and its occupant’s existence: creation. Despite knowing each other only briefly, I felt as though we had known one another for years, although the paths of our lives could hardly have been more different.

Very little is known in Poland about Roman Lipski and his work. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that his work is known only to a small circle of curators and art historians. The artist has lived in Berlin for more than twenty years. He moved there as a teenager in search of adventure and a better life. Following difficult beginnings and arduous years of searching, he is now a successful man. His works are held in outstanding contemporary art collections, including those of Dr Erich Marx and Volker Schlöndorff, as well as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Colby College Museum of Art. He spoke with remarkable openness about his path through life to Aneta Panek and Piotr Kosiewski. They interviewed him separately, at different times and in different places — Berlin and Warsaw. The result is a pair of superb, complementary conversations that make compelling reading.

The opening essay in the catalogue is by Magdalena Lewoc, an art historian and curator associated with the National Museum in Szczecin. The second was written by Friederike Nymphius, a German curator of international corporate collections of contemporary art. Both authors know the artist’s work intimately and are enthusiastic about it, while viewing it from different perspectives. The result is a pair of insightful and exceptionally engaging texts, which I warmly recommend.

While preparing Roman Lipski’s exhibition at Atlas Sztuki, I asked collectors why they bought his paintings. Volker Schlöndorff said: “Roman Lipski can illuminate even the bleakest landscapes. With sharp contours, he separates beauty from tawdriness. He frees the heavens from the damage humanity has inflicted on nature. He makes them radiant.” The distinguished German collector Dr Erich Marx stated: “Roman Lipski’s paintings are a great open book of his soul. His works contain a silence that, overcoming all the divisions of life, rests within itself and finds expression in an emptiness that is in fact nothing other than an indication of the endless mutilation of our world. These paintings are far removed from everyday superficiality, from garish colour and from the dreadful noise of our times. This accounts for the fascination of his work.” Guido Westerwelle, then Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany, put it briefly: “Roman Lipski has a place in my small collection. I greatly admire his art.”

In inviting you to visit Atlas Sztuki and encounter Roman Lipski’s art, I would add that our exhibition presents the artist’s work from 2002 to 2010. It is clear to me that, for Lipski, completing another painting means reaching only a certain stage — one from which the path towards further exploration begins.
I will follow the future development of Lipski’s work with great interest.