Radek Szlaga's 'Greatest Hits' at Fiuto Art Space in Ripatransone

Fiuto Art Space in Ripatransone hosts 'Greatest Hits,' a solo exhibition by Polish painter Radek Szlaga (b. 1979, Gliwice), curated by Alex Urso, running until March 1, 2025. Szlaga, who moved to the US in the 1990s, navigates between Polish roots and American influences, blending Soviet-era imagery with capitalist iconography. The show features paintings, drawings, and sketchbooks created for the occasion, depicting women, children, animals, and objects. His work critiques both the illusory American dream and post-communist Polish liberal capitalism through sarcasm and layered visual references. Curator Alex Urso describes Szlaga's obsessive accumulation of Western and Eastern European folklore, manifested in dense, multi-material surfaces that combine extra-pictorial, objectual, and photographic elements. The artist's practice reflects a tension between globalization and local identity.