Darko Lesjak – Gas Attack

Exhibition Darko Lesjak – Gas Attack, National Museum of Contemporary History, Celovška c. 23, Ljubljana, 26. 2. 2015 – 3. 5. 2015, opening on 26. 2. 2015 at 18.00, author of the exhibition: Darko Lesjak, Munich

The exhibition has been prepared by the National Museum of Contemporary History, Ljubljana, Slovenia, to mark the centenary of the beginning of battles along the Isonzo river. The exhibition presents a cycle of works of art on the theme of WW1 by Darko Lesjak, Slovene artist living in Munich, and a selection of documentary photographs from the Museum's collection of WW1 photographs related to the motifs on the works of art. The photographic material has namely been the basic artist’s inspiration.

In the background of the cycle is the death of the artist's great grandfather Franc Steničnik who was killed during WW1 on the Isonzo front. The exhibition presents the expressive Lesjak's works in charcoal and pastels on paper, in the technique that the artist has found most appropriate for painting motifs of »the burnt down land«. The works of art have been created in thematic series entitled Gas Attack, Dugout, Burning Man, Inferno, Graveyard and Fields of Death.

The symbolism of WW1 is put to the front: the use of the poisonous gas, dehumanisation of a man, hidden behind a gas mask, trenches, destruction of nature and a man, and vast military graveyards. Since the use of the poisonous gas marked WW1 most symbolically, the exhibition is entitled Gas Attack.

Darko Lesjak


Darko Lesjak: Gas Attack 1, 2013,
charcoal and pastel on paper, 59 x 41 cm


Darko Lesjak: „Inferno 3“, 2014,
charcoal and pastel on paper, 38 x 69 cm

“We lost everything human we had possessed ...”
Austro-Hungarian soldiers equipped by gas masks and black humour, August 1918.
From the album of Janko Spreitzer.
(National Museum of Contemporary History)

Devastated landscape on the Isonco battlefield
(National Museum of Contemporary History)