Distant Memories

Using photographic, sculptural and performative means, Daniel Rajcsanyi creates alle- gories and fields of tension of personal mythologies. The private world (as exposed and marked body) is in immediate touch with signifiers of widespread cultural and historical perspectives on the human being. Entanglements of intimate and social realities lead to an energetic impact that bears potential to sharpen the comprehension of these dimen- sions in our unconsciousness. They pursue an overcoming and reversal of resentments and ruptures of the taboo. Transformations of the body into medium and canvas, can be seen as ways of emancipa- tion of the self. Naked body as mirror of its needs. In his works, painting and tattoo mark Rajcsanyi‘s body and refer to traces that are - sometimes irreversibly - left in the identity. In his alter ego „Florian Böhm“, innermost needs, the urge to satisfy them and therein the detachment of discipline, devotion and sacrifice in the sense of a better self transcend. As central work the installation „Hdl/Der Anfang der Liebe“ depicts the artist in rearview presenting a flower. In doing so, he casts inviting glances into the camera, while his head is colored in bright orange. The simultaneous depiction of romantic gift and sexual recep- tivity unite apparent contradictions. While the practice of giving flowers has long tradition and has always been lived out publicly, the expression of sexual desire is marked by re- pression and masquerade. The Overcoming of traditional views on love, identity and sexuality is further pursued in the following works. In vigorous figures, such as the somersault in front of a flaming and five-pointed star bearing the jagged inscription COLLAPSE, symbolic images of reversal and collapse of fixed values are created. The compositions represent a personal and direct confrontation of the own world, cons- tituted by experience and perception, and its environment. Elements like thorny roses or button-stitched upholstery reflect the broad emotional dimension of transformation bet- ween pain and intimacy, between aggression and sensitivity. In their plasticity and com- position of linked symbols, they are resemble totems. Framed in a palette of orange and red, associations with images of fire, blood and the devil, but also of youth, love and joy emerge. Daniel Rajcsanyi uncovers cornerstones of the unconscious that shape our access to reality. At the same time he reverses their meanings, breaks them open and expands the structures of our perception.