Acrylic paint, image transfer, smoke grenade, uv varnish, medical tape on wood and aluminium
200 x 150 cm
78 3/4 x 59 in
Copyright The Artist & Harlan Levey Projects
In Head in the Sand (right panel), Dudek shares his artistic references with both humor and gravity. On the right side of the panel, he overlaps one of Kurt Schwitters’...
In Head in the Sand (right panel), Dudek shares his artistic references with both humor and gravity. On the right side of the panel, he overlaps one of Kurt Schwitters’ collages with an image of weapons seized from hooligans in Poland. Sticks, knives, and a samurai sword are interspersed with police evidence rulers. The juxtaposition plays on the idea of the found object (here, the confiscated object). In this way, Dudek references an important part of his process, the incorporation of outside elements into his work. Other images include those of a William Blake work whose title was taken from the Book of Revelations: Rzeka Życia, or River of Life. Dudek replaces this watercolor with the image of a crowd streaming out of a train station and towards a football match, an autobiographical scene from East Poland in the 90s. On another page, he interrupts the Conversion of St. Paul with the image of two fans beating a supporter from a rival team, a modern form of conversion. Between these, is a segment on Otto Dix, beginning with this quote: “I didn't paint war scenes to obstruct the war. I painted them to conjure war. For all art is exorcism.” The central panel of Dix’s famous War triptych is replaced here by an image of young men wielding banners and knives in the suburbs of Krakow. The composite image is sliced through its middle, cutting the men off at the legs. The right panel is totally severed, destroyed by a hole in the panel which still smells like fire. By fusing his personal memories of real violence with the artwork of Otto Dix, Dudek shares his interest in using art to survive, to overcome.