At the tail end of October, a former train manufacturing site in Berlin was home to ‘APNEA’, a unique ten-day exhibition. It was Pejac’s fourth self-produced solo show that saw the Spanish artist push his exposition practice to a new level. With large numbers of people from different corners of the globe in attendance, especially on the opening night, APNEA was sold out and ended up being an all-round success.

Having at his disposal eight different rooms and spaces, Pejac put on display over forty new artworks that literally came in all shapes and sizes. The smallest object that was part of APNEA, was a pencil sharpener containing the image of a prehistoric cave painting that could be observed only through a magnifying lens. By contrast, the largest installation on the show was an enormous half-sunk paper boat with origami seagulls circling above, preying on cargo washed overboard. While most works on the walls featured desaturated tones, the astonishing rendition on the floor of Georges Seurat’s La Grande Jatte made up of confetti and wrapped sweets could not be described as anything but an explosion of colour.    

Chilly temperatures in the German capital didn’t discourage anyone from going out to attend the show. Once inside the erstwhile factory, visitors plunged right into the carefully arranged visual spectacle that could be considered an imaginary world in its own right. And yet, many of the works alluded unambiguously to two of the most pressing real-world problems: environmental pollution and climate change. Unless we act now, we’re in even greater trouble, activists proclaimed at COP26 – the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow which rather fittingly coincided with APNEA. For his part and in his own artistic way, Pejac seemed to be saying the exact same thing, notably through elaborate and elongated accumulations of plastic waste that evoked sea waves breaking onto a beach. His uncanny remakes of several impressionist masterpieces in which swirling black holes suck up all that is depicted were another case in point.

With his love for twists and turns and intricate details, Pejac typically endowed his art with different layers of complexity. This gave rise to animated exchanges of thoughts among viewers who at times were wondering what exactly it was they were gazing upon. This certainly applied to ‘The Boss’, a limited edition print of which was released on the occasion of the show. Proceeds generated through the sale of lottery tickets for the purchase of this highly sought-after limited edition were donated in part to the German NGO Sea-Watch.    

Now that APNEA has dissolved into the memories of those who visited, Berlin is slowly regaining its breath. However, courtesy of Pejac, in one particular spot in town reality is still somewhat turned on its head. The sculpture of a refugee kid called ‘Landless Stranded’ on the very top of the Holy Cross Church – an art installation put in place mid-October to help raise awareness of both the vital work of Sea-Watch and the fate of refugees – will remain in place until the final day of the year.