Marcin Zarzeka studied in the painting class. Easel-oil-painting, however, never interested him. His work is a way of overcoming the painter’s obligations; it is an attempt of going beyond, or outsmarting, the medium.
Surely he makes use of the painterly attributes; it’s basic molecules – paint, the stretcher, color and texture. But what emerges is not a painting; instead, sophisticated objects that show the essence of painting are created. The exhibition’s title comes from a popular polish pop song from the 90s, by the band De Mono. In it reverberates the painterly melancholy of Turner, the impressionists, post-impressionists and all those, who chose the boat as a subject. Marcin searches for a point just outside the border of what is no longer a painting, a border outside of which we can still feel the aftertaste of the oily medium.
Marcin’s work visually brings to mind the Russian avant-garde, sometimes even, though not necessarily on purpose, specific pieces. The colorful intermixing planes in Marcin’s work are determined by the logic of geometric abstraction – like Rodchenko’s drawings made with the help of the line and compass. The avant-garde’s way of reaching its goal was self-destruction; it placed itself in history’s point zero. Marcin’s work is void of this utopia and danger; it is a delicate, often formal play with accepted formulas of abstract art. This art is at peace with the fact that it will not repair the world, its inner tension results from the aesthetics of shapes, their transparency and texture.
One of the avant-garde’s utopias was the attempt to find a universal language, forms which will mean without borrowing.
The avant-garde’s mistake was that, treating it as a tool, they did not realize the meaning of language. However, as we found out a bit later, language is a wave that carries us. Like a boat.
Dawid Radziszewski (Pies Gallery, Pozna?, PL)