Composition of variable systems XVIII

Adam Marczyński, associated in 1933-1934 with the first Kraków Group and involved in its reactivation in 1957, operated in many visual languages of modern art. In the 1930s, he painted organically abstracted still lives, betraying his fascination with purism. His sublime colours brought him close to the most prominent milieu of the time, the disciples of Józef Pankiewicz from the Paris Committee. In the second half of the forties he was still balancing on the border of realism, organising the surface of the painting with cubic and expressive gestures. In the period of thaw, he joined the current of metaphorical art, close to many of his former colleagues from the period of studies. The connection between Marczyński's painting and the sculptures of Maria Jarema and Henryk Wiciński, which was already evident before the war, indicated the artist's spatial sensitivity. In 1959-1960, he turned to the painting of matter to spend the next decade constructing paintings-objects, at first organic (e.g. from burning sheets of plywood), from 1962 onwards they became more and more rigorous, with a cold geometry (reliefs with rectangular metal plates set at various angles). In 1965, for the Biennale of Spatial Forms in Elbląg, he created a monumental assemblage with a static frame and square plates moved by the wind. Made in the same year, Kompozycja układów zmiennych XVIII [The Composition of Variable Arrangements XVIII] consists of functionally similar elements. The vertical arrangement of the field is emphasised by an axial black wooden slat, similar ones are framed by horizontal rectangles made of copper sheet on hinges, distinguished by colour and allowing to change their spatial position. Entering the third dimension led to action during one of the famous plein-airs in Osieki in West Pomerania. In 1970, Marczyński hung his geometric compositions on tree branches and trunks, creating open and unified arrangements, though contrasting with nature. In this way he joined the currents of kinetic art, earth art and performance.

Szymon Piotr Kubiak