In the beginning was the word. In the summer of 1989, 17-year-old Mirko Reisser and two friends spray-painted the five letters RIGHT on a distribution box. The term alone is a provocation. After all, the damage to property – at least from a legal perspective – is anything but “right”. Today, 35 years later, Mirko Reisser still writes his name DAIM in the style of a classic graffiti writer. At the same time, however, Reisser redefines writing to a certain extent by transforming his pseudonym into complex sculptures.
Sometimes this is to be understood literally. Reisser has also made forays into sculpture, carving the word DAIM out of wood or casting it out of concrete – and in this way transforming the two-dimensional medium of writing into three-dimensionality. As a rule, however, Reisser creates an optical illusion of physicality when he paints his name on canvases, in exhibition spaces or on building facades. He plays with light and shadow with such virtuosity that the impression is created that the beams, curves and polyhedrons, which are interlocked to form complex figures, leave the surface and actually extend into the room.
One of the exciting ambivalences in Mirko Reisser’s work is that he writes his name repetitively – in keeping with the idea of writing – while at the same time constantly redefining the rules of writing for himself. Like the fact that although he still works with a spray can, he has long since composed his pictures and applied them in numerous layers like a classical painter. When he writes the name DAIM today, he obeys the blueprints of the letters. At the same time, however, he deconstructs and reconstructs them until it is hardly possible to recognize the structures as sequences of letters.
In this way, Mirko Reisser explores the boundary between surface and space, between typography and architecture, between legibility and abstraction in his very own way.
Rik Reinking has accompanied Mirko Reisser alias DAIM since 2001 and has acquired numerous works and groups of works from all creative phases for his collection. Based on this long-standing relationship between artist and collector, it is now possible to trace Reisser’s unique path from a writer active on the street to an internationally sought-after artist.
A catalogue of the exhibition is available at the WAI store, in bookstores and online.
Paperback, German / English, 128 pages. 20 x 26 cm.
ISBN 978-3-9824951-0-1.
Publishing date: May 6th, 2024.
The opening will take place on Sunday, 5 May from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
12:30 p.m.: Welcoming remarks by Rik Reinking.
Admission is free. No registration required.
Exhibition: May 2024 to January 2025.
Plan your visit at woodsartinstitute.com
WAI Woods Art Institute
Golfstraße 5
21465 Wentorf bei Hamburg / Germany
Directions:
The Woods Art Institute is about a 15-minute walk from the Reinbek S-Bahn station (HVV line S2) and is thus directly connected to Hamburg Central Station. Accessibility by car is possible via the A24, A25 or B5 motorways. Due to limited car park capacity, we recommend travelling by public transport.
Titlephoto © Kai-Uwe Gundlach / Graphic Mirko Reisser (DAIM)
ABOUT THE WAI
Not far from Hamburg‘s city limits, located in a western extension of the Sachsenwald Forest, the park area, designed by Rudolph Jürgens and laid out in 1914 as the country estate of a Belgian merchant, now encompasses a picturesque ensemble of thatched half-timbered houses, a functional building from the 1940s and the modern exhibition house of the WAI Galleries with the Reinking Collection constructed in the early 21st century. The result of this unique history of development and use is a campus that features generous green areas as well as open and alternating intimate exhibition, work and recreational rooms, surrounded by the ever-present, primal nature of the forest.
As a place of creation and teaching, the WAI offers a range of art courses, seminar and event spaces as well as a boarding house and artists’ studios in addition to its exhibition programme.
ABOUT THE REINKING COLLECTION
Since its founding, the Reinking Collection sees itself as a place of encountering and further developing art and man. Over the past twenty years, the Reinking Collection has repeatedly expressed this concept in the form of numerous exhibitions and promotions and has also confronted existential human questions. The collection has found a permanent home in the WAI Galleries’ rooms for the first time and at the same time gained the opportunity to present itself with a richness that has been unseen until now.