Tower Designer Desk I 1968

Mikuláš Medek made Tower Designer Desk I with paint, sometime around 1968, and the process seems to be one of layering, scraping, and building up texture. The palette is mostly cool blues and whites, but these stark red dots pop out, and they’re surrounded by this kind of starburst effect, like explosions or maybe some weird kind of cosmic event. Up top, there’s this almost architectural structure, but it's rendered in a way that feels unstable, like it could collapse at any moment. It's as if he’s letting us see his thinking, as he's working. I particularly love that little window-like shape on the right, with a grid inside it that looks like it's been scratched into the surface. It reminds me of Cy Twombly's graffitied surfaces – this sense of something ancient and modern coexisting in the same space. I can almost hear the echo of voices and the scratch of chalk on a blackboard. Ultimately, Medek reminds us that art is not about answers, but about endless questions, and about seeing the world in new and unexpected ways.