Marek Radke
Mediathek Sorted

Images becoming objects while remaining images; shades of colour lining up to form a complex, multi-part sequence of tones; geometric elements succeeding in breaking even the severity of structural predictability and being transformed into a playful show of changing sensual effects: these are just some of the direct visual experiences that Marek Radke’s art is able to communicate. They are the result of consistency and creativity, which is anchored in the great tradition of Constructivism. With Strzemiński and Stażewski – to name just two – the movement is represented by key figures in Polish art and, despite all the prophecies of doom, remains alive and well today. In turn, Radke succeeds in articulating his own arsenal of forms in his artworks, with an individual image language that has grown over the years.
To illustrate this point and make it comprehensible, a brief reminder of Radke’s first years as a painter in Poland during the early 1980s is in order. Why? From Malevich before his black square to Mondrian before the red, black and yellow linear squares against a white background, or Kandinsky before the first abstract composition following his depiction of figures from Russian fairytales, the path of development has always led away from a representationalist style towards a treatment of colour and form that is emptied of any dependence on reality and based on the absolute freedom of area and space. The same is also true of Marek Radke.
There was, and still is, talk of the new autonomy of image elements, whatever it was that I was doing, but of course, that is only partly true. The will of the artist remains the dominant factor; it is the decisive institution which invents a new image structure and formulates its own rules. These can have their roots in mysticism, as with Malevich; in a neo-platonic mindset, as with Mondrian; or in the spiritual, as with Kandinsky – or in a sensitive yet specific narrative art, from which Marek Radke once emerged.
The free, informal abstraction and the strictly bound Constructivism develop from different roots, each retaining its own characteristics without having settled as such. Then there is the difference in creation between the genesis that has developed and the practical availability of finished forms and methods, such as in the field of crafts and design. Radke’s early years are surely a case in point here. His works from that time show an artist who has learned his traditional craft and who is already consciously playful in his abstractive handling of the content – a deliberate paradox. These images are, after all, a politically critical, satirical reckoning with the times and were, incidentally, certainly not without risk. He was accused by the authorities of betraying his country. It was with a sense of pride when the same paintings were again shown in Gdańsk 20 years later.