Rafał Zajko: The Spin Off

26 Mar-7 Jun 2025

Overview

Focal Point Gallery is pleased to present the first institutional solo exhibition by Polish artist Rafał Zajko.

Working with a wide range of processes and materials, from ceramics and prosthetics to frescos, Zajko’s predominantly sculptural practice explores themes including architecture, labour, religion, working-class heritage, the industrial past, and queer identities. His works interweave each of these elements to suggest reinterpretations of the past – and to imagine new future realities.

This exhibition, titled ’The Spin Off’ is an immersive and theatrical installation combining sculpture, mobile staging, sound, lighting and performance. The project is a continuation of Zajko’s research into hauntology within our recent industrial past, with particular attention to 20th century utilitarian design, architecture, and technology. In an era of late capitalism, where we encounter constant remakes and revivals in many areas of our lives, refreshing the familiar is a common trope which is something that captivates the artist’s interest.

In the formation of this exhibition, Zajko has drawn from Frederik Kiesler’s designs for Endless Theatre (1916–26), a utopian theatre conceived to explore the concept of endless space; to play with the idea of spectatorship; and to test the possibilities of an audience’s perspective. Kiesler’s design for this utopian theatre was never realised, but his egg-shaped plaster model, floor plans and elevations suggest Endless Theatre could one day shift from futuristic architectural fantasy to reality. The infinite – as suggested by the elliptical egg-shape of Kiesler’s design – is a continual source of fascination for Zajko and recurs as a motif in ‘The Spin Off’, to underscore ideas of revival, renaissance, renewal, non-linear cycles, and circuitry.

In the gallery’s largest exhibition space, Zajko will present a new sculpture – the largest relief the artist has ever produced, and one that can exist both horizontally and vertically. Designed to be reconfigured regularly, the piece presents infinite possibilities in its presentation and use: as an artwork, set, stage and architectural intervention. Seen from above, the structure is circuit shaped and resembles a birds-eye view of an architectural plan. Embedded in its surface are ceramics and concrete casts offering a myriad of interpretations and uses – perhaps as a space of worship, or of education, entertainment, relaxation, or even governing.

By its nature performative, the constant relocation of the work takes on a ritualistic dynamism. Zajko is interested in the spatial qualities of religious architecture – particularly its reliance on axis, symmetry and repetition – and the psychological possibilities this offers to the spectator. In an adjacent gallery, the walls will be painted in a geometric style giving an illusion of perspective. This will become a backdrop for the large, mechanised, ‘self-performing’ wall-based domed sculpture that uses light and smoke to fill and empty itself, nodding to ideas of self-cleansing and self improvement.

The sculptural works will be informed and activated by a performance piece, which is developed through a series of workshops involving members of Contemporary Elders, Focal Point Gallery’s local 60+ group. Focusing on revival as a way to look at the future, the resulting work will include the participants in these workshops and take place in the exhibition space.

This exhibition, part of FPG x Jerwood Presents, is made possible by a Jerwood Foundation grant, which has been awarded to Focal Point Gallery for 2024–25, with additional support from Henry Moore Foundation.

About Rafał Zajko

Rafał Zajko (b. 1988, Białystok, Poland) is an artist based in London. Zajko was recently awarded Abbey Fellowship at British School at Rome (Spring 2024). His sculptural commission Bread and Milk was shown in Autumn 2023 at Kunshalle Wien in Austria. Recent solo exhibitions include Clocking Off at Queercircle (2023), Song to the Siren at Cooke Latham Gallery (2022), Amber Waves at Public Gallery (2021), Resuscitation, Castor Projects, London, UK (2020); We Were Here/My Tu Bylismy, Galeria Im. Slendzinskich, Białystok, Poland (2019); Unputdownable, White Cubicle, London (2018). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including London Open 2022 at Whitechapel Gallery, New Contemporaries 2021 at South London Gallery, X Museum, Beijing, China (2020); TJ Boulting, London, UK (2020); Bold Tendencies, London, UK (2020).