A digital restoration proposal for
The Barbican Mural by Robert O. Lenkiewicz

To understand Robert O. Lenkiewicz is to embrace contradictions in life and art where images, ideas may merge to become both the serious and the playful, and the seriously played with perhaps, when desired. My first encounter with Lenkiewicz was the Sexual Behaviour exhibition at his studio on the Barbican in the early 80s, a show that local newspapers deemed ‘offensive’. The experience was overwhelming, the only affront to sense and sensibility apparent in the philosophical detailing of dualisms in extremis; the desperate melancholies of nubile beauty, the humour and poignancy of aggressive forms of opulence. The middle class revulsion seemed to stem from the literal union of art and artist exemplary in the self-explanatory The Painter Rutting with a Goat. Whatever Lenkiewicz did, and usually with a provocative agenda, he did fearlessly and with real aplomb. Later that summer such affronts were further reaffirmed to me at the Elephant Fayre festival in St. Germans. As I wandered up to Lord Eliot’s house to view Lenkiewicz’ Round Room Mural I came upon Lenkiewicz himself taking tea with his extended family in the nude. Horrified daytrippers were kindly informed that it was just too nice-a-day to wear anything more than one’s beard.

Recently I returned to Plymouth as a pilgrimage to visit his studio and view The Barbican Mural: ‘The Influence of Jewish Thought on Elizabethan Culture 1580-1620’. This time I was truly shocked, for his studio was empty and up for rent, the mural faded, battened and peeling in the sun. Fading with this work are possibly some of Lenkiewicz’ most important contradictory ideas on worlds and times, pasts and present, on symbioses to be found in the thorny relations between art, science, literature and religion in society. I wondered if this seminal work was going to be saved? Contact with The Lenkiewicz Foundation revealed many attempts to do so, including Lenkiewicz’ own, but real problems with any physical restoration. Complete removal appears necessary to stabilize the surface before restoration work can begin, not to mention the ongoing costs of maintaining the image once restored.

Therefore, I propose ‘The Talking Wall’, a digital alternative to any ‘actual’ restoration, a replica that would at the very least help preserve and regenerate the mural using current media technology. Adopting a collaborative, non-invasive approach, two artist residencies set up to photographically capture the whole in sections, initial documentation taking place at night in order to retain light, tone and colour continuity. Then drawing on studies and sketches from the Lenkiewicz archive the work would be reconstructed using specialist paint and paste software. The project would then move into a manipulation phase where facial features within the mural would be animated, named actors employed to vocalize relevant texts from the Renaissance period. This work would draw on Lenkiewicz’ intentions for the mural, utilizing texts from his extensive library archive. The final high-definition image becomes part of a 1:1 scale night screening event, an on-site computer programme activating ‘random’ conversations through hidden speakers within the wall. Both image and event would be portable enough to travel as part of any future touring exhibitions. No doubt such an idea generates a lot of questions regarding the ownership of content and style but ultimately the aim is to raise awareness of the importance of Lenkiewicz and his work and the important contribution he made to debates on what actually constitutes healthy/unhealthy societies.

Lenkiewicz’ general scepticism is summed up in the 1970s tourist booklet Notes on the Barbican Mural where artist Marcel Duchamp is quoted as saying ‘memory is unfaithful [and] it is this […] that explains the delightful fantasy of history.’ At the very least I hope this project will allow a return to serious play utilizing the most up-to-date technology, to hear voices of the past and reconsider sociopolitical ideas that are slowly but surely falling out of view and earshot. Memory may be ‘unfaithful’ but the ultimate contradiction would be to stand in front of this wall in future, mute and vacant with Lenkiewicz gone, and say how much we once loved it.

Idea copyright/concept: Robert John Brocklehurst, 2009

The years 2006 – 2009 are covered. Where possible we will provide photographic walkthroughs or YouTube video of the events.

TLF thanks all contributors who gave permission for their content to be used.