Marcin Dudek: Steps and Marches

About

Marcin Dudek works with objects, installations, collage and performance, touching upon questions regarding control in society, the hierarchy of power, and mechanisms of violence as seen from sociological, historical, and psychological standpoints. Steps and Marches is a culmination of his extensive research into theories of crowd control, including topics such as police riot techniques, architectural approaches to prison or stadium building, and mass manifestations. Dudek’s analytical and field research builds on autobiographical archives and experiences.

The exhibition takes place at Edel Assanti (London) and Harlan Levey Projects (Brussels) expanding on two prior exhibitions in each gallery. Works in the exhibition demonstrate the relationship between one and many in a cross-chunnel dialogue. The London exhibition dives into the march of mass movements, whilst the Brussels chapter zooms in on the steps of individuals who shaped those spectacles. Centrefold in London is a monumental installation comprised of freestanding geometric MDF blocks, each referencing specific historic crowd disasters through statistical representation. Monitors embedded within this modular landscape play looped black and white footage, alternating between exercises in coordinated demonstrations and violent explosions of crowd violence. Inanimate sculptural objects construed from materials that evidence these same disasters or authoritative bodies’ attempts to curtail them. 

The exhibition will open at Harlan Levey Projects on 7th September during Brussels Gallery Weekend, and on 21st September at Edel Assanti, remaining open throughout Frieze in London.