DOMINIK BAIS

A Matter of Perspective
19 October 2025 – 12 April 2026
Curated exhibition at Lechner MuseumThey questioned everything: material, space and perception. The post-war avant-garde radically broke with conventions, making materiality itself the core of their art. Names such as Richard Serra, Phyllida Barlow, Robert Morris, Charlotte Posenenske, Dadamaino, Gary Kuehn, Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Fred Sandback, Reiner Ruthenbeck and Hanne Darboven represent a generation that explored matter, the presence of objects in space and the role of observation.
These artists took different paths: in their works, rigour and seriality meet chance and instability, physical laws meet sensual-spatial experience. What they have in common, however, is that they make materiality itself the core of their work, thereby redefining the conditions of artistic experience. Art is no longer narrated – it is experienced, felt and thought. At its heart is the direct relationship between humans and matter, the intense interplay of body and space.Photos: Jens Gerber. Design: Off Office, Munich

Alf Lechner. Material als Akteur
Dominik Bais2025
Book, ISBN 978–3–95476–728–1, DISTANZ Verlag, Berlin
256 pages, 140 color illustrations, softcover with flaps, title blind-embossed on the coverIn the work of sculptor Alf Lechner (1925–2017), material steps out of its seemingly passive role to become an active participant in the artistic process. The new monograph Alf Lechner: Material als Akteur (Material as Agent) by Dominik Bais, opens up a production-aesthetic perspective on Lechner’s work, shedding light on the infrastructural and economic conditions of art production that are often overlooked. Featuring previously unpublished photographs, notes, and documents, and with a design that emphasises the material dimension of the content, this book offers fresh insights into the artist and the role of matter in artistic production.Photos: Edward Greiner. Book design: Off Office, Munich

Materie Stahl
13 April – 14 September 2025
Curated exhibition at Lechner MuseumFor Alf Lechner, steel was not a passive material, but an active agent with its own independence and resilience. His later works in particular reveal how he explored the unpredictability and complexity of the material and made its inherent dynamics visible. Lechner saw steel as a co-author of his sculptures, whose reactions and processes helped determine their form. His works illustrate that material is not only shaped, but also shapes itself – a concept that raises social and philosophical questions beyond the realm of art.Photos: Jens Gerber. Design: Off Office, Munich.

Lisa Seebach: Earthy Liquids and Heavy Metal [Hypersleep]
Dominik Bais2024
Catalogue, ISBN 978-3-7356-1012-6, Kerber Verlag, Berlin
Texts: Dominik Bais, Olga Hohmann, de/engAbstract and mysterious: Lisa Seebach's (born 1981) sculptures are reminiscent of industrial objects such as gas cylinders or oil drums, which become autonomous actors in a poetic and enigmatic staging full of associative meta-narratives. In the thicket of post-apocalyptic science fiction, black utopia and posthuman aesthetics, they point to possible threats in the face of dystopian escalation and explore ways of escaping them. Earthy Liquids and Heavy Metal [Hypersleep] is Lisa Seebach's largest solo museum exhibition to date and features numerous works from the last ten years as well as works conceived specifically for the rooms of the Lechner Museum. The publication of the same name brings together numerous installation views and accompanying texts.Design: Lukas Schimpfhauser, Munich. Photos: Jens Gerber.

Lisa Seebach: Earthy Liquids and Heavy Metal [Hypersleep]
11 August 2024 – 9 March 2025
Curated exhibition at Lechner MuseumThe works of sculptor Lisa Seebach (born 1981) unfold a dystopian space that leads from the measurable world into an imaginary reality. The starting point is the artist's hand drawings, which she stages as steel structures and balances between materiality and dematerialisation with ceramic counterweights. Abstract and mysteriously distorted, the sculptures allude to objects such as gas cylinders or oil drums, which thus become aesthetic actors in a poetic and enigmatic staging. This creates a paradoxical scene full of associative meta-narratives between post-apocalyptic science fiction and black utopia.Photos: Jens Gerber. Design: Lukas Schimpfhauser, Munich.

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InfoDominik Bais (*1992 in Ulm, Germany) is a Munich based curator and author working in the field of contemporary art. From 2012 to 2018, he studied art education at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts at the class of Prof. Matthias Wähner and graduated with the award for best exhibition. From 2016 to 2021, Bais studied time-based media under Prof. Julian Rosefeldt and graduated as 'Meisterschüler' with a diploma and the academy's award. In 2023, Bais received his doctorate from Prof. Florian Matzner and Prof. Ursula Ströbele at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts for his research on questions of matter, infrastructure and production with a focus to theories of New Materialism and based on the work of the German sculptor Alf Lechner.Dominik Bais has been director of the Lechner Museum in Ingolstadt since 2023.

Exhibitions (selection)

2025 · Matter of Perspective, Lechner Museum Ingolstadt (curated)
2025 · Alf Lechner: Materie Stahl, Lechner Museum Ingolstadt (curated)
2024 · A Community of Bodies, Lothringer13 Halle, Munich
2024 · rethymno Festival, Kreta GR
2024 · Lisa Seebach: Earthy Liquids and Heavy Metal [Hypersleep], Lechner Museum Ingolstadt (curated)
2023 · b3 Festival of moving Image, Frankfurt am Main
2023 · Bamberger Kurzfilmtage
2023 · Video Art Miden, Kalamata/ Thessaloniki GR
2023 · Marco Stanke: Teil's Teil's, Lechner Museum Ingolstadt (curated)
2022 · Rencontres International, Louvre Museum Paris
2022 · Rencontres International, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
2022 · On Art Filmfestival, Warschau, PL
2022 · Reconstructions, Bethanien, Berlin
2022 · lassitude, Goethe-Institut Paris
2022 · moving monuments, International Short Film Week Regensburg
2022 · re:working archives, Platform Munich
2021 · Künstliche Paradiese, Kunstverein Leipzig
2021 · kata komb, Haus der Kunst, Munich
2021 · Masters Printmaking, Royal Society for Encouragement of Fine Arts, Antwerp
2021 · 4. Biennale für Videokunst ‚Videodox‘, BBK München
2020 · Phanias, Biberacher Filmfestspiele, Traumpalast Biberach
2019 · Debütanten 2019, Haus der Kunst, Munich
2017 · Switch.to.art, Brückenhaus, Neu-Ulm
2017 · Help?, KMMN Kulturbahnhof, Kassel (curated)
2016 · Karl & Faber Preis, Auktionshaus Karl und Faber, München
2015 · Müncher Bank Medienkunstpreis, München
2014 · Survival Kit, Lothringer13, München
2013 · S*kit, Athens School of Arts, Athen

Awards (selection)

2023 · NEUSTARTplus-Stipendium, Stiftung Kunstfond, Bonn
2023 · Studio scholarship from the Bavarian State Ministry
2021 · Award for the Diploma of the Academy of Fine Arts Munich
2021 · Scholarship of the State of Bavaria 'Junge Kunst und Neue Wege'
2020 · 'Meisterschüler' of Julian Rosefeldt
2018 · Award for the State examination
2017 · Award of the Academy Association
2016 · Shortlist Karl & Faber Art Award 2016
2016 · ‚Junge Kunst in Bayern 2017‘, LfA Förderbank Bayern
2016 · Award of the Academy Association
2016 · Artist Residency Herzliya, Tel Aviv
2015 · Media Art Award of the Bank of Munich
2013/2014 · Residency, Athens School of Fine Arts, Athen und Delphi
2013/2014 · DAAD-Program S*kit“
2010 · Kepler Art Award, Ulm

Betreute Taubenschläge für München

Projektinfoermationen:qm: 100
Leistungsphasen 6 + 7

Schal & Schatulle2023Das Design für die neue Trophäe des Goethe-Institut Dokumentarfilmpreises setzt sich aus zwei Teilen zusammen: Schal und Schatulle. Hauptelement bildet dabei der Schal, zu dessen Aufbewahrung eine Schatulle entwickelt wurde, die sowohl als Statuette als auch zur Präsentation des Schals genutzt werden kann: Hierfür wird der Zylinder um 90° gedreht und an der Wand befestigt. Bei der Übergabezeremonie des Preises wird die Schatulle geöffnet, der darin befindliche Schal wird entrollt und der Preisträger*in umgelegt.

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