Damian Le Bas

Damian Le Bas was a flower seller, graduate of the Royal College of Arts, artist, DJ, Rome and visionary of a free world. When he died in 2017, he left behind an impressive body of work. For the Kai Dikhas Foundation, Damian Le Bas is a central position in its program and collection. Le Bas tirelessly opposed the often hostile world with his art. Together with his artist colleague, the French Gitano Gabi Jiménez, he coined the term “Gypsy DaDa”, which, in keeping with the anti-bourgeois Dadaism of the 20th century, defends itself against racism and forms of oppression with Damian Le Bas’s own humor. Damian Le Bas had a penchant for collecting objects and maps, from which he made his now famous, magnificent collages. While maps are usually created to show borders and define territories and countries over which bloody battles have often been fought for centuries, in Le Bas’s work they become the background for his collages. Faces, figures, ideas and found objects overgrow his maps weightlessly. In his art, which he created with his wife and artistic partner Delaine Le Bas in joint, large, expansive installations, stage sets and also performances such as “Safe European Home?” or “Frontier de Luxe”, his “Gypsyland” becomes reality. His art shows a world as it could be: without battles, borders or illegality of people. Painting over maps with his seemingly playful approach manifests political aspirations. Le Bas shows us that the whole world is “Gypsyland”, which is an important insight in relation to a people who cannot call any territory their own. Le Bas’ art is both: simply art and also activism. His maps do not document an existing territory, they create a new country. It is this inspiring power of his art that makes Damian Le Bas a role model for many Roma activists and his works icons of a movement.