Edgar Leciejewski’s new work A Circle Full of Ecstasy comprises 77 portraits of different politicians raising their right arms in greeting. The artist collected the images from press publications over the last 16 years and, in a process of assimilation, transposed them into cyanotypes – an old photographic printing process which produces characteristic colour shades of cyan blue. In each case, the figures of the people portrayed turn slightly from one image to the next, so that over the course of the sequence this results in a 360-degree turn of the body.
With A Circle Full of Ecstasy the artist has found a visual metaphor / parable for political events. Avoiding any judgement or evaluation, he attempts to unite the political elite of all continents and cultures via this everyday greeting.
Leciejewski’s work examines the various social and scientific techniques in photography and makes an attempt to coax the relevant questions of our times from the medium of photography. Besides themes in content and reflection upon his own ways and means of working, he allows the dimension of time to flow into the photographic work. His works are stores or repositories of time, enabling a deceleration in the act of seeing and experiencing.

Edgar Leciejewski *1977 in East Berlin, lives and works in Leipzig and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.