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Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Marcin Dudek, Us Against Them, 2019

Marcin Dudek

Us Against Them, 2019
Acrylic paint, steel dust, pigment, copper paste, glass, image transfer, medical tape, uv varnish on wood and aluminium
220 x 170 cm
86 5/8 x 66 7/8 in.
Copyright the artist
The central part of the collage concentrates on the black and white image of Zvonimir Boban and the ‘kick that started a war’, a symbolic image of the Yugoslavian disintegration....
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The central part of the collage concentrates on the black and white image of Zvonimir Boban and the ‘kick that started a war’, a symbolic image of the Yugoslavian disintegration. This event is seen by many as the beginning of the Balkan war. Dudek uses this image as a symbolic course and effect. The broken window leads to further deterioration, similarly drawing a contrast to the Philip Zimbardo experiment with two abandoned cars in 1969.

“In 1969, Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist from Stanford University, ran an interesting field study. He abandoned two cars in two very different places: one in a mostly poor, crime-ridden section of New York City, and the other in a fairly affluent neighbourhood of Palo Alto, California. Both cars were left without license plates and parked with their hoods up. After just 10 minutes, passers-by in New York City began vandalizing the car. First they stripped it for parts. Then the random destruction began. Windows were smashed. The car was destroyed. But in Palo Alto, the other car remained untouched for more than a week. Finally, Zimbardo did something unusual: He took a sledgehammer and gave the California car a smash. After that, passer-by quickly ripped it apart, just as they'd done in New York.”

In the upper part of the collage, the floating geometrical shapes details a map of a defragmented Yugoslavia, split into several separate islands. The bottom left depicts stills from recent footage of a drone carrying Albanian nationalist symbols during the National game between Serbia vs Albania in 2014. On the 14th October 2014, an UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying match involving the national association football teams of Serbia and Albania took place at Partisan Stadium, in Belgrade, Serbia. The match was abandoned after several on and off the field incidents. Serbian fans had chanted "Ubij, ubij, Šiptara" (Kill the Albanians), and threw flares and other objects on the pitch. Thereupon, a drone quadcopter carrying an Albanian nationalist banner with an image of Greater Albania appeared on the pitch.
With the waves, Marcin Dudek illustrates the extreme levels of hate and violence produced during such an incident. Acid, burns, and the pure bile of the human spectacle.
The artist chose this quotation by Gustave Le Bon as he found it described the situation appropriately:

“Crowds being only capable of thinking in images are only to be impressed by images. It is only images that terrify or attract them and become motives of action”
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