Martin Dörbaum

Kapinos Gallery, Berlin
Through April 8

Martin Dörbaum, a twenty-nine year old artist from Berlin, works exclusively with digital images. Nowadays many young artists utilize computer and mouse to create their works, but with Martin Dörbaum the digital image is free from the constraints of photography.

The artist uses software as a computing system capable of creating images without analogic references to reality. His works depict interiors, corners of just any apartment, kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms devoid of any human element and never open to natural landscapes.

In this one-man show at the Kapinos Gallery, Dörbaum presents eight new works entitled Microviseur 2200, digital images developed on aluminum by the lambdachrome technique, all of them 92.6 by 80 cm. Through a door peep-hole, distorted by the fish-eye lens, images of hallways, entrance halls and stair landings are revealed to the viewer.

The point of view is voyeuristic, and it creates a latent and morbid curiosity. At the same time, though, these images do not tell a story: the doors on the hallways are always closed, and they seem to multiply infinitely; the window glass is opaque, and the observer’s eye is drawn to the vanishing point, where the artist wants to lead it.

One cannot escape from Martin Dörbaum’s digital world. When the subject is a landing, this becomes a maze of ups and downs. The existence of the elevator stopped at the floor or the bicycle in the hall, for their part, is tied just to the visibility given by the artist, and can only remain within the circle of the mirror. In addition, representation is achieved without any straight lines. To a repressed mental state, such as voyeurism is, Dörbaum attributes images formed only by curved lines and obtuse angles, with the light source never in the composition.

The feeling one gets when looking at them is similar to the embarrassment one experiences when, looking through the peep-hole, one holds one’s breath, certain of not being seen, but afraid of being heard.




Luca Paulli
Translation by Bruna Pegoraro Brylawsk