SPEECH at SAM
CHEYCO LEIDMANN St.Moritz Art Masters 2012
SAM-Exhibition "The Expression Of Identity"
Cheyco Leidmann lives and works between Paris and the USA. He is clearly someone who doesn't want to be defined by biographic elements,but through his work which is the essential. His career crosses diverse mediums such as film,screenplay writing,performance,assigned stills mostly on the wicked side. Leidmann's work revels in excess and contradiction;it explores the mysteries that surround him.His first publication the worldwide cult bestseller *Foxy Lady*,seven monographs followed, established an immediately recognizable new visual style of magical images of cutting edge expressionism. He stages a grotesque world,prompting the viewer to enter his erotic and burlesque theater,creating an unreal universe where dreams,fantasies and reality meet and imposes once eyes exposing an American environment of subtle banality which in the end turnes monstrous.A place populated by voluptuous women in oversized stilettos,with bodies wearing tight hyper color clothes,in provocative poses next to cars,tied up and faces mutilated to make them unrecognizable.Leidmann's images have become a 'trademark' and although his style got copied,admired,criticized,it grew and remains immediately recognizable amongst all.He marked the universe of photography with his hyperreal explosive palette of colors,his impudence,and his provocations.As street art relays a suggestion of aerosol art's dynamic contemporary energy beginning with illegal graffiti and outdoor murals by pop surrealists,so used Leidmann the constructs when creating his timeless urban scenes.His works have been part of this evolving graffiti-art border community since the 80s always provokng conversation.
Today Cheyco Leidmann is different from the Leidmann we've gotten used to.His work incites the viewer more than ever,but he has replaced his tongue-in- cheek playfulness with the hard edges of anguish and expectancy.In his new monograph TOXYTT he imposes his vision of the real world with an angle of anxiety,anticipation and the painful discontinuity between the reassuring darkness of the earth and the hostile light.His success with the public has never been denied.
The work has garnered several prestigious awards,amongst them the New York Creative Directors Club Gold Award. Cheyco Leidmann is accompanied by his creative collaborator Ypsitylla von Nazareth.