Seb Janiak
« KINGDOM»
NOVEMBER 9 – FEBRUARY 3, 2018

Opening with the presence of the artist Thursday November 9th from 6pm to 8.30pm

Born in 1966. Lives and works in Paris.
After showing Seb Janiak’s “Paradeisos” at the beginning of this year, Pièce Unique is presenting a solo show in the 2 spaces of the gallery with a group of works of the series “The Kingdom”.
This series, started in 2009, constitutes an essential step in Seb Janiak works.
“The Kingdom” is inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the “Bardo Thodol” where the soul deprived of its mortal envelope has to face its repressed desires, its angers, traces of its passing through the matter on earth. During the 49 days of the Bardo, the conscience of the soul has to understand that all these sometimes diabolical visions are not but fantasies, an illusion created by fear and that only then the true light gets the upper hand and will guide the soul towards the one and only light of the creative God.

In this silence of shrouding layers, the form loses its rythm and assurance. The visible face of these monumental photographies is only there to allow us get to its secret face which, as a supernatural window, opens at the border of the world where we live walled in; further begin dark areas the reason cannot reach but only the soul.
It is as much about a personal quest as about a game for an artist moved by the will not to be held in appearances. Staying on the alert through a constant questioning on the world, Seb Janiak sketches answers, proposals. By the image.
This fictitious world which under our eyes gets organized as it pleases, with the remains of the real world, reveals the most specific essence of a soul.

For the artist, the light stops being the clearness which highlights what is: she is an emanation, a divine irradiation, a silent power that talks to souls. It is necessary to break the visible to reach the invisible.
All these images of the physical world are not more than the announcement of another one: the spiritual world. Their richness, their magnificences, of which the artist does not disdain to get the brightness, do not appear more than the avant-garde of a splendor of a different order, obsessing presence of which they inform us. This language of the spiritual depths wide opens for us the heavy doors of an unknown we hold in ourselves.

In creating his works, the artist has opened a window on his soul. We cannot expect to find it in the brilliance which is the exclusive privilege of the reason. Everywhere else are only trends, confused outbreaks, whirls and stirs, where the mind –even when used to this twilight of the backgrounds of the mind- has troubles in recognizing itself.
The religions have always appealed to images to communicate what exceeded the power of the words. The darkness from then on does not come anymore from a lapse of the light but rather from the failure of the look unable to stand too powerful brightness that exceeds it means.
The eye listens says Claudel, standing out although it is necessary to perceive beyond the immediate obvious facts. What does he listen to? « The Voices of Silence » answered Malraux.
Seb Janiak is an artist photographer and French director, of Polish origin.
En 2009, after an international career in the realization of musical clips and fashion photography, he returns towards the artistic and scientific search in the domains of the photography of art.
At the end of 2011 his first book of photography of art is published by Zauberkind edition based in Switzerland whose foreword is written by Philippe Starck.

ABOUT GALERIE PIECE UNIQUE
PIECE UNIQUE GALLERY headquarters have been based in Paris since 1988, specializing in masters of contemporary art. For almost 30 years, we have been an advisor to private, corporate and public art collections worldwide.
Pièce Unique Gallery has organized a large number of key exhibitions for art collectors. Working directly with artists, these exhibitions have included CY TWOMBLY, CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI, GEORG BASELITZ, LOUISE BOURGEOIS, YAYOI KUSAMA, ERIK BULATOV, DENNIS OPPENHEIM, BERNAR VENET, SOL LEWITT, BEVERLY PEPPER, REBECCA HORN, EDUARDO CHILLIDA, CHRISTO, GEORGE CONDO, JAUME PLENSA, ENZO CUCCHI, JAMES BROWN, ROSEMARIE TROCKEL, MIMMO PALADINO, ALIGHIERO & BOETTI, JANNIS KOUNELLIS, MARIO MERZ, DANIEL BUREN, DONALD SULTAN, JEAN PIERRE RAYNAUD and many other leading international artists.
The Gallery has two separate show rooms in Paris and is generally present at most key international Art Fairs such as Miami, Dubai, New York and others...