Marcin Dudek
Passage VI, 2022
Acrylic paint, image transfer, medical tape, linen, uv varnish on wood and aluminium
200 x 150 cm
78 3/4 x 59 1/8 in
78 3/4 x 59 1/8 in
Copyright The Artist & Harlan Levey Projects
Further images
Passage VI The bomber jacket and its ceremonial reversal are a key iconograph and code in Marcin Dudek’s practice. The jacket and ritual of turning it inside out became the...
Passage VI
The bomber jacket and its ceremonial reversal are a key iconograph and code in Marcin Dudek’s practice. The jacket and ritual of turning it inside out became the locations of inspiration for Dudek’s exhibition “Slash & Burn II.” Central to this exhibition, was a large installation that testified to the impact of the switch to capitalism in Eastern Europe and the survivalist economy that followed. Hundreds of jackets sent from the West to the East were collected from thrift shops and brought back to Belgium to be stitched together, creating a monumental coat which envelops, shields, and takes over the viewer. The large installation speaks towards Dudek's investigations of crowd dynamics and mass spectacles: what happens when 300 bodies become entangled as a single mass? What changes when one becomes many? What are the threads that connect individual and consensual experience?
In Passage IV fences and divisions were scraped and carved into the panel almost like scars. Passage VI however, begins with a single sheet of linen folded and burned as demarcation zones appear in ashes and heat stains. The linen was then unfolded and pasted on to the wooden panel to expose the repetition and violent divisions that tear apart a singular landscape. Whereas in Passage II, the flames come from outside and seem to scorch the body, here they’re projected from the inside out as the orange interior seems to burst symbolizing the distress the color represents globally and foreshadowed in stadium subcultures around Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Similar to other works in the series, Dudek used his hands to apply primer to the surface, injecting a performative expressionist body language on to the textile. Whereas other works in the series employ image transfer to embed images from his extensive personal archive, Passage VI transfers the image of a 3D model of the sculptural sketch Dudek built in 2019, using medical tape to recreate his bomber jacket as he began working on the installation for “Slash & Burn II”. Here, the digital model becomes a case study as the jacket is manipulated into different poses, positions and shapes as the orange interior expands beyond the body. At times the jacket seems to be dissolving having been physically ground down with an angle grinder. In other instances, it appears twisted, distorted, even confused as it bends apart in to new narratives as the garment begins to resemble a stadium or alternative structure able to house a crowd of bodies and not simply a single torso. As the model becomes abstract, it leaves questions unanswered. Is this a beginning? Is this an end? Is this the artist liberating himself from the autobiographical elements that characterized this series?
The bomber jacket and its ceremonial reversal are a key iconograph and code in Marcin Dudek’s practice. The jacket and ritual of turning it inside out became the locations of inspiration for Dudek’s exhibition “Slash & Burn II.” Central to this exhibition, was a large installation that testified to the impact of the switch to capitalism in Eastern Europe and the survivalist economy that followed. Hundreds of jackets sent from the West to the East were collected from thrift shops and brought back to Belgium to be stitched together, creating a monumental coat which envelops, shields, and takes over the viewer. The large installation speaks towards Dudek's investigations of crowd dynamics and mass spectacles: what happens when 300 bodies become entangled as a single mass? What changes when one becomes many? What are the threads that connect individual and consensual experience?
In Passage IV fences and divisions were scraped and carved into the panel almost like scars. Passage VI however, begins with a single sheet of linen folded and burned as demarcation zones appear in ashes and heat stains. The linen was then unfolded and pasted on to the wooden panel to expose the repetition and violent divisions that tear apart a singular landscape. Whereas in Passage II, the flames come from outside and seem to scorch the body, here they’re projected from the inside out as the orange interior seems to burst symbolizing the distress the color represents globally and foreshadowed in stadium subcultures around Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Similar to other works in the series, Dudek used his hands to apply primer to the surface, injecting a performative expressionist body language on to the textile. Whereas other works in the series employ image transfer to embed images from his extensive personal archive, Passage VI transfers the image of a 3D model of the sculptural sketch Dudek built in 2019, using medical tape to recreate his bomber jacket as he began working on the installation for “Slash & Burn II”. Here, the digital model becomes a case study as the jacket is manipulated into different poses, positions and shapes as the orange interior expands beyond the body. At times the jacket seems to be dissolving having been physically ground down with an angle grinder. In other instances, it appears twisted, distorted, even confused as it bends apart in to new narratives as the garment begins to resemble a stadium or alternative structure able to house a crowd of bodies and not simply a single torso. As the model becomes abstract, it leaves questions unanswered. Is this a beginning? Is this an end? Is this the artist liberating himself from the autobiographical elements that characterized this series?