DAIM RETROSPECTIVE 35 YEARS OF GRAFFITI ART
In the beginning there was the word.
In the summer of 1989, 17-year-old Mirko Reisser and two friends sprayed the five letters RIGHT on a distribution box. The term alone is a provocation. After all, property damage is anything but “right” – at least from a legal perspective. Today, 35 years later, Mirko Reisser still writes his name DAIM in the style of classic “graffiti writers”. 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 already made forays into sculpture, carving the word DAIM out of wood or casting it out of concrete – and in this way transferring 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 rooms or on house facades. In doing so, he plays with light and shadow so virtuoso that the impression is created that the beams, curves, and lines are nested into one another to form complex figures. Polyhedra would leave the surface and actually protrude into space.
The fact that he writes his name repeatedly – in keeping with the idea of writing – but at the same time has long since set the rules of writing for himself again and again, is one of the exciting ambivalences in Mirko Reisser’s work. Like the fact that he still works with a spray can, but at the same time he has long since composed his pictures and applied them in numerous layers like a classic painter. When he writes the name DAIM today, on the one hand he obeys the blueprints of the letters. At the same time, however, he deconstructs and reconstructs them until it is no longer possible to recognize the structures as sequences of letters.
In his own unique way, Mirko Reisser explores the boundaries between surface and spatiality, between typography and architecture, between legibility and abstraction.
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 an active street writer to an internationally sought-after artist.