Colour as a ready-made: notes on the margins of the works of Adam Marczyński

Elżbieta Błotnicka-Mazur

doi:10.21697/sc.2021.28.spec.13

Published:

No. 28 (2021)

Colour as a ready-made: notes on the margins of the works of Adam Marczyński

Elżbieta Błotnicka-Mazur

Saeculum Christianum. Historical Writings

Section: Rozprawy i Artykuły

https://doi.org/10.21697/sc.2021.28.spec.13

Abstract

The article deals with the issue of colour and its perception in selected works by Adam Marczyński (1908-1985), which are part of the Variable Reflections series from the 1960s and 1970s. The starting point for our considerations is colour treated as a ready-made, a colour swatch annexed to the painting arts by artists aware of the fact that colour can be a commercial product. The subject of the analysis are Marczyński’s works filled with square or rectangular coffers covered with movable flaps hinged on an axis. The artist covered the interior of the coffers with intense colour, usually achieved through the use of fluorescent paints. Their vivid colour was to be transmitted through reflections of light bouncing off of the silvery surface of flaps, and changing depending on the angle of inclination.

Keywords:

Adam Marczyński, Variable Reflections, colour in contemporary art, fluorescent paints, the art of the 1960s and 1970s.

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Błotnicka-Mazur, E. (2021). Colour as a ready-made: notes on the margins of the works of Adam Marczyński. Saeculum Christianum. Historical Writings, (28), 176–186. https://doi.org/10.21697/sc.2021.28.spec.13

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Elżbieta Błotnicka-Mazur

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5653-9481

Affiliation:

John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Institute of Arts Studies Poland

Bio Statement (e.g., department and rank)

Doctor of Philosophy, art historian, assistant professor at the Department of Arts Studies from Antiquity to the Present, Institute of Arts Studies (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin). Her research interests include the art and architecture of the 20^th century, especially the sculpture in public space and the phenomena at the intersection of sculpture and other artistic disciplines in Polish art of the 1960s. She is currently working on a monograph devoted to selected problems in the work of Adam Marczyński (1908-1985) from the Kraków Group.