The Racist Planet directly confronts systemic racism through dark, fragmented glass collected during 2020 political protests following George Floyd's murder and global Black Lives Matter movement. The somber colors and jagged fragments symbolize how racism shatters communities and humanity. Created as Gerliczki witnessed protests from his Atlanta home, the work documents urgent moment when "pressing issues of our time concern ourselves and future of our culture." The planetary form suggests racism as global crisis requiring collective action, echoing Einstein's call against passive complicity.
Zoltan depicts a broken planet alongside 13 other “planets” based on the most common human feelings or behaviors, such as happiness, sadness, anger, anticipation, fear, loneliness, jealousy, disgust, trust, greed, joy, racism, and shame.
In these images, the artist works with various fragments of colored glass and other debris that he collected from the streets near his home in Atlanta during the COVID-19 quarantine and political protests. Zoltan assembles these pieces in his studio and re-photographs them to symbolize the current crisis of political and environmental problems. At this moment, the most pressing issues of our time concern ourselves and the future of our culture and our planet. In a sense, the artist takes the pieces and puts them back together to reconstruct a fragmented world.
“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who do nothing about it.” -Albert Einstein
The Racist Planet addresses 2020 social crisis—protest debris transformed into powerful statement against systemic racism and fragmentation justice. Archival pigment print from The Broken Planet. Available at The Art Design Project, Miami Beach.
The Racist Planet - Dark Fragmentation Social Justice from The Broken Planet
The Racist Planet, 2020
From the series "The Broken Planet"
Archival Pigment print
Limited Edition.
Unframed
Gerliczki was born in Nyíregyházain, Hungary in 1971 and he was raised in a Budapest orphanage during Hungary’s Communist regime. He is a filmmaker, painter, and computer artist who currently works as a graphic designer in Antwerp, London, Paris, and New York. As a graphic designer and post-production artist he has been involved with various publications including Elle Décor, House Beautiful, Zoo Magazine, Io Donna, Departures (US), Cosmopolitan (France), Paris Review, Travel & Leisure, and The Guardian UK, among others. Commercially, he has also been involved with Thierry Mugler, Christian Lacroix, Illy, and L’Artisan Parfumeur Paris, among others.
