piktogram

CONSTELLATIONS: SQUARES IN A CUBE

Alan Charlton, Melissa Kretschmer, Sol LeWitt, Thomas Ruff, Zbigniew Rybczyński

On view until 23 May 2026

Piktogram hosting Konrad Fischer Galerie

Pictured
Alan Chartlon, Detail Painting, 1978
acrylic on canvas, 9 x 9 x 4.5 cm

British painter Alan Charlton emerged in the early 1970s at a moment when Minimalism, post-Minimalism, and hard-edge abstraction were reshaping the possibilities of painting and sculpture. His work resonates with the formal clarity of artists such as Ellsworth Kelly and with the modular, materially attentive investigations characteristic of American and European minimalism.

Within this landscape, Charlton developed a singular position defined by extreme precision, disciplined restraint, and a sustained commitment to the sculptural potential of the painted surface. It was also against this backdrop that Charlton made the pivotal decision to work exclusively with the color grey—a choice that has shaped his practice for more than five decades.

Rather than functioning as a neutral absence, grey became for him a rich instrument, a means of investigating physicality, tone, and surface without the distractions of chromatic expression. In tandem with this chromatic discipline, Charlton employs a distinctive vocabulary of forms—modules, notches, crosses, and other geometric articulations—that ties his practice to minimalist sculpture as well as to painting. These structural interventions activate the paintings’ meticulously controlled surfaces, allowing rhythm todevelop through subtle shifts, repetition, and the play of light across relief.

Born in Sheffield in 1948, his major solo exhibitions have been held at Museum Kurhaus Kleve (2008) and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2001). He has participated in significant group exhibitions, most notably documenta 7, Kassel (1982). His works have also been shown at institutions including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.

CONSTELLATIONS: SQUARES IN A CUBE

Alan Charlton, Melissa Kretschmer, Sol LeWitt, Thomas Ruff, Zbigniew Rybczyński

On view until 23 May 2026

Piktogram hosting Konrad Fischer Galerie

Squares in a Cube presents works by Alan Charlton, Melissa Kretschmer, Sol LeWitt, and Thomas Ruff—a selection of paintings, wall works, sculptures, and photographs from 1978 to 2023. Piktogram Gallery is contributing Zbigniew Rybczyński’s 1972 film Kwadrat.

Exhibition views by


constellations2026

in conversation with featured in the new issue of

Zuza Golińska
Writing as Positioning of the Self in Sculpture
A conversation with Anna Kipke
[Intro-Text]
Zuza Golińska is a sculptor and visual artist who lives and works in Warsaw and Gdańsk. In her artistic practice, she explores the production of space in various aspects, interrogating the public and private spheres. Her practice is based at the intersection of sculpture, performance,
spatial design, and experimental forms of writing. Golińska studied at the Department of New Media Art and graduated from the Mirosław Bałka’s Studio of Spatial Activities (MA) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In her latest performance, Mud, Muck, Marsh (2025), she worked together with the performer Anna Steller on themes of mourning, exhaustion, isolation,
and fatigue. It was part of the performative program accompanying the opening of the new museum building and of the exhibition The Impermanent: Four Takes on the Collection at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw. In her latest solo exhibition, Swarm (2025) at Piktogram in
Warsaw, the practice of writing offers a dimension to the displayed sculptural works, positioning the self within current geopolitical dynamics.