Piotr Łakomy at Dürst Britt & Mayhew

Artist: Piotr Łakomy

Exhibition title: Worms

Venue: Dürst Britt & Mayhew, The Hague, The Netherlands

Date: September 3 – October 23 2022

Photography: Gert Jan van Rooij / copyright the artists and courtesy by Dürst Britt & Mayhew, The Hague, Stereo, Warsaw and The Sunday Painter, London

Note: an accompanying essay by Jagna Lewandowska, curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, can be found here

In his artistic practice Polish artist Piotr Łakomy explores the relationship between the human body, architecture, and the environment. For his first solo exhibition in The Netherlands he will present a new series of intimate works, some of which contain silkworm cocoons.

Łakomy is known for using both organic and industrial materials in his work, often focusing on aluminum honeycomb – a material traditionally used in aerospace and construction industries – which he employs in a way that suggests natural formation. Apart from the formal properties of the honeycomb, Łakomy considers its cellular structure a pattern that symbolizes the potential for dwelling.

With the use of ostrich eggs, that often appear in his work, the artist refers to the sphere as a fundamental architectural form and as a shelter for life. For his solo exhibition at Dürst Britt & Mayhew he for the first time deploys a much smaller type of ’animal container’: silkworm cocoons. These are made of extremely long threads (1,5 to 3 km from a single thread) and are known for their special physical properties and great strength.

Piotr Łakomy (b.1983) lives and works in Poznań, Poland. Recent solo exhibitions were mounted at Le Creux de L’enfer, Thiers, France; Stereo, Warsaw; Simian, Copenhagen; Koenig 2, Vienna; SKALA, Poznań, Poland; Avant-Garde Institute, Warsaw; Centre for Contemporary Art FUTURA, Prague; The Sunday Painter, London. Selected group exhibitions include ‘The Living House’, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany; ‘Who Are We Are Who’, Braunsfelder Family Collection, Cologne; ‘Harvest the crust from your eyes’, Slash, San Francisco; ‘Metamorphosis. Art in Europe Now’, Foundation Cartier, Paris; ‘Orient’, Kim Contemporary Art Center, Riga, Latvia; ‘Half-Truth’, Xawery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture, Warsaw; ‘Views Art Prize’, Deutsche Bank Foundation Award, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; ‘Private Settings’, Museum of Modern Art Warsaw.

Work by Łakomy is held in many private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Art Collection Telekom, Filiep Libeert collection and the Collezione Agovino.

Łakomy is represented by Galeria Stereo, Warsaw and The Sunday Painter, Londen, who have mounted various solo presentations in their galleries and at art fairs like LISTE Art Fair Basel; Art Basel Statements; Frieze New York; Paris Internationale.

We thank Galeria Stereo from Warsaw for their kind cooperation.