Urban Adventure in Rotterdam: Outsider Art at Rotterdam Kunsthal

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Outsider Art at Rotterdam Kunsthal

The Museum of Everything at the Rotterdam Kunsthal is a mind-blowing experience. There is too much to see, too many worlds to experience. I must ingest and digest in very small bites.

Miroslav Marsalek, b 1958 (Prague, Czech Republic)
Unstoppable art-maker and journeyman, whose cultural investigations find evidence in his philosophical ruminations and graphic memories of a life spent in the streets and tunnels of the wintery city.

When I see these hypnagogic artworks I see The Golem and Prague. But I also see plaster-cast Catholic sculpture groups behind chicken wire. I see the Codex Serafinianus. But I also see newspapers used as isolation against the cold during Operation Barbarossa.

Self-taught artist, Miroslav Marsalek (* 1958 Prague, lives and works in Geneva) – aka Mirek or Dugogh tells through his drawings observations and experiments of his daily life. On his notebooks, intertwine sketches, calligraphic essays, portraits and writings on the most diverse subjects: from art history to recipes through a structural analysis of hamburger, or autobiographical notes and quotes from poets and philosophers.

Self-taught, Mirek conveys his daily observations and experiments through his drawings. Of Czech origin, Mirek was trained in graphic design and calligraphy at the SOSV Prague. He came to Switzerland in 1988, where he worked as a graphic designer until 2011, before joining the team of the Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève as a technician.

Probably born out of necessity, not intended as art. Still it looks as a surreal art project by Louise Bourgeois. How satisfying to make hidden art in a grey city corner. A Kabbalist master hiding in back-alleys of Prague and Geneva. Expected in Prague, a huge surprise in Switzerland.