Marcin Dudek

 

Across performance, sculpture, installation and painting, Marcin Dudek repurposes salvaged materials and memories to interrogate the psychology of group dynamics and the structures that shape our everyday lives. Often archival and site-specific, his installations frequently take the form of ‘memory boxes’ - immersive sculptural environments that archive lost or inaccessible spaces drawn from his own experiences. His subjects have included cafes, supermarkets, football stadiums and hair salons; sites of everyday interaction where social relationships are negotiated and behavioural norms take shape. Within these arenas, layered narratives unfold, shaped by the inconsistencies, ruptures, and distortions that characterise our relationship to formative and traumatic events. His research ties his personal archive to a broader history of society’s inseparable relationship to spectacle, whilst seeking an artistic vocabulary attuned to fragmentation, instability, and the unreliability of memory.

 

Dudek (b. 1979, Krakow) studied at the University of Art Mozarteum, Salzburg, and Central Saint Martins, London, graduating in 2005 and 2007 respectively. Recent solo exhibitions include NEST, Harlan Levey Projects, Brussels, Belgium (2026); FLIPERY, Café Cobra, Kraków, Poland (2025); The Ground Harbours the Soul, OOF Gallery, London, UK (2025); EKIPA, Ostwall Museum, Dortmund, Germany (2024); Gniazdo, Leto Gallery, Warsaw, Poland (2024); AKUMULATORY, IKOB Museum, Eupen, Belgium (2023); The Group, Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp, Belgium (2023); NEOPLAN, Edel Assanti, London, UK (2023); Ultraskraina, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris, France (2021); Akumulator, Edel Assanti, London, UK (2019); The Crowd Man, MWW Wrocław Contemporary Museum, Wrocław, Poland (2019); The Lure of the Arena, MNAC National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Romania (2019); Steps and Marches, Edel Assanti, London, UK & Harlan Levey Projects, Brussels, Belgium (2017). Selected group exhibitions include ReSilience, BASE Milano, Milan, Italy (2025); SPOTT Triennale of Contemporary Art, Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (2025);  Sandcastles, Galeria EL. Elblag, Poland (2025); Energia, TheMerode, Brussels, Belgium (2025); Liquidation Totale, pal project, Paris, France (2024); Ortigia Contemporanea, Ortigia, Italy (2024);  Espectro, Galeria Bienal De Cerveira, Vila Nova de Cerveira, Poland (2023); Sport Games, Mazovian Centre of Contemporary Art Elektrownia, Radom, Poland (2023);  Stayin’ alive, BPS 22, Charleroi, Belgium (2023); Art of the Terraces, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK (2022); 8th Biennial of Painting, Museum Deinze and Museum Roger Ravel, Deinze, Belgium (2022); FUCK YOU, Kunstenhuis Haralbeke, Belgium (2021); DOPPELGANGER, Entreprendre & KANAL-Centre Pompidou, Brussels, Belgium (2021); Psychic Wounds: On Art & Trauma, The Warehouse, Dallas, USA (2020); Giochi Senza Frontiere, Palazzo Mazzarino, Manifesta12, Palermo, Italy (2018).

 

Dudek’s immersive installation The Cathedral of Human Labor, 2013, is on permanent view at the Verbeke Foundation, Antwerp. His work is included in public collections including MWW Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Wrocław, Poland and National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Romania. His first monograph, Slash & Burn, was published by Hopper & Fuchs in 2023. In 2025, Dudek received the Prix de Sculpture de la Fondation Marie-Louise Jacques. Marcin Dudek lives and works in Brussels.