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FUNDAMENTAL VALUES
2024
Installation of 4 objects
Canvas, acrylic paint, steel, lacquer, concrete
350 x 320 cm, 300 x 320 cm, 250 x 320 cm, 200 x 320 cm


The interrelation of art and politics is articulated with particular clarity in Fundamental Values, an installation comprising a series of large-scale banners, installed at varying heights and in carefully orchestrated spatial relationships, that draw both visually and conceptually from the aesthetic strategies of political demonstration—echoing the physical experience of collective movement in public space. Each banner is painted with a distinctive black-and-white geometric composition rendered directly onto coarse, untreated canvas. This deliberate material choice underscores the work’s tactile immediacy and haptic qualities, evoking the rough, utilitarian nature of protest materials while simultaneously referencing the visual discipline of Minimal art. Yet Fundamental Values does not simply replicate the formal tropes of minimalism. Instead, it critically re-engages them, imbuing abstraction with affective charge and socio-political resonance. The rhythmic repetition of geometric motifs functions not merely as an aesthetic device but as an embodied expression of insistence and urgency—mirroring the cadence of protest chants or the physiological constancy of a heartbeat. In doing so, the work gestures toward the corporeal dimension of political expression: protest as both a visual and physical act. Though the banners abstain from literal slogans or explicit political imagery, their abstract and poetic form nonetheless makes a bold political statement, while the ambiguity of the term “fundamental values” allows for a multiplicity of interpretations. In this way, the work resonates across eras, drawing lines between historical movements of resistance and the ways in which we visually articulate dissent today.



Photos: Studio Kay Walkowiak