Marcin Dudek

Art as a strategy for living; Marcin Dudek’s practice builds from autobiographical experience and expands to explore the broader phenomenon that shaped it. These include the rituals of subculture, DIY economy and crowd dynamics – how one gets pulled into many and what control is lost as a mass gains momentum. Often working with found, salvaged or repurposed materials, Dudek constructs objects, installations, painting and performance, touching upon questions of power and aggression in the context of sport and cultural spectacle. His paintings offer insight into his overall approach, which incorporates a rather obsessive work ethic, meticulously slicing and manipulating medical tape, rubbing images into the cloth and building up a painting through collage. The level of detail and craft is manic and neurotic, meditative and thoughtful, as violence becomes an energetic aesthetic reflecting a lived experience. 

After leaving Poland aged 21, he studied at the Mozarteum University Salzburg (AT) and at Central Saint Martins (London, UK), graduating in 2005 and 2007 respectively. His work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (RU), Salzburger Kunstverein (AT), the Arad Art Museum (RO), Bunkier Sztuki Gallery (Krakow, PL), the Goethe-Institut Ukraine (Kiev, Ukraine), and The Warehouse Dallas (US). His installation The Cathedral of Human Labor (2013) is on permanent view at the Verbeke Foundation in Belgium. In 2018, he presented a large installation at Manifesta 12 Palermo (IT), which was followed by a solo exhibition at the Wrocław Contemporary Museum (PL).

In 2022/23 Dudek’s work was exhibited at Kunsthal Extra City (Antwerp, BE), The IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art (Eupen, BE), The Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool, UK), Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, TEA (Tenerife, ES), Frieze Art Fair (London, UK), SMAK - Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (Ghent, BE), The Biennale of Painting (Deinze, BE), The BPS22 Museum of Art of the Hainaut Province (Charleroi, BE), Centre Wallonie Bruxelles (Paris, FR) and The Warehouse (Dallas, USA). His first monograph was published by Hopper & Fuchs in 2023.

In 2024, Dudek participated in the Ortigia Contemporanea festival (Siracusa, IT), and presented a solo exhibition at Museum Ostwall (Dortmund, DE). In 2025, he will have solo shows at the MNAC - National Museum of Contemporary Art (Bucharest, RO) and at OOF Gallery (London, UK). Dudek lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.