Ákos Bánki was born into an ideal place, owing equally to his childhood environ ment in Kazincbarcika and Miskolc, an absence not consciously realised await ing to be filled and later bound to bear fruit, as well as to Sándor Szerdahelyi, his teacher and master from whom he learnt the foundations of visual translation. Objectivity soon became the embodiment of absence, the object of desire – the painting of a reality par excellence, born at the conjunction of the tangible, the visible and the imperceptible or barely perceptible
An analysis of eternal values takes place in the paintings and in the process of their creation: a combinatorics of superimposing layers and of prophetically harnessing their interactions as well as their often-incalculable physical and chemical mechanisms, reinforced by the palpable thickness resulting from layering and by the living organism-like changeability of this material dimen sion, confirming that matter, too, has a place alongside the spirit.
Under the influence of the Zugló Circle, indirectly the Parisian Schools, and Tamás Lossonczy’s works, coupled of course with his own desire for freedom, Bánki left behind figurative representation, the direct depiction of nature and the built environment, and later even parted with figurativity serving as a clear starting point for abstraction. It was a risky move because it can discourage some people from internalising his art, while those willing to directly engage with his paintings will be enriched by something that overwrites impersonality, by something universal, an experience meant for human beings alone.
Bánki’s works displayed here were made in 2023 and mostly in the months preceding the current exhibition: they represent the stations of a consistent exploration, seen by the artist as necessary, which he has been pursuing for twenty years now. He thinks in terms of sequences and series, with each cycle, at times including subtle overlaps, springing from and leading to an experience that we need to live through in as many forms as possible to be able to feel our struggle with the elements of existence bearing fruit from time to time. Bánki effortlessly maps out various perspectives, processes changes and abstracts all these, partly because of the influence of Sándor Molnár, Orsolya Drozdik and Tamás Lossonczy, and partly thanks to the worldview of artists he only encountered through their works, such as Sándor Weöres, Béla Hamvas and, of course, Tibor Hajas, Mark Rothko, Hermann Nitsch, Otto Mühl and Arnulf Rainer, and the American giant female painters: Joan Mitchell and Pat Steir.
Discernible in his colour abstractions and his most recent colour-splayed works, morphing into passages between spatial and temporal dimensions is the immortal-moment approach of photography together with the tradition of American expressionism, Rothko’s bravura. We are in for an exceptional treat: during contemplation, the world might be condensed into us.
Bánki’s earlier series also help us to experience such an emotionally rich state: Melancholy (2013) with its playful cosmoses, Soul Flowers (2011–) with its snapping petals and tangled structures, Psychic Space (2006–) with its X-ray-like, stripped-down images of body and spirit, Dionysos (2009–) with its chaos ordered, among other things, by its colours charged with white, Barcelona (2020) with its riot of colour demonstrating rebirth and the Flūmen series (2021–) with its quasi summation.
The allure of the paintings results from the artist’s metamorphosis and, as a consequence, from him remaining within the picture – the painter’s pres ence in this non-corporeal material is obviously facilitated by the life-size dimension of the canvases, which allow for interaction, and even for a kind of symbiosis. It is not only the hands and heads that struggle to freeze and cap ture the vision – the entire body is part of the flow of energy. A struggle with matter is taking place, with the magic of countless dimensions of definable colours and colour associations mixed according to an idea and converted into form.
Bánki’s most recent series, Sequences, follows the previous expressive meditative path in its structure. Active resistance and acceptance are si multaneously present in these almost Babelian structures, which, yet again, extend beyond the frame, seeking to traverse those areas that theoretically lie outside it. The clearly delineated or at times blurred bands of colour are painted onto the canvas in a predetermined order and then, as a final outcome, the closing gesture, which starts from the last colour band and is reminiscent of the subversion known from Nitsch, weaves the momentary whole together. This ‘weft’, occupying the very bottom of the picture, becomes the essence of the painting – it is here that the wonder of an absolutely complex process resides: an abstraction that shows us in a condensed way what we need to know, while also reminding us of what was necessary to arrive at this knowl edge, allowing us to sense the rendering of the given sequence taking place within us as we reach a point of repose.
The nine paintings exhibited in the semicircular space of the Kunsthalle Budapest’s apse and each of the works of the Flūmen series, placed on the blade walls, is a retrieval. The painter does not retrieve data but a state, and the acoustics become perfect when we stand at the centre, close the magic circle and become the twelfth, the principal masterpiece ourselves, while the paintings achieve their effect without the now-superfluous orgy.
This light solitude, being enveloped by what we see around us, prepares us for the loneliness that we will eventually experience and for being left utterly alone at an even later point in time. The rehearsal show.
Szilvia Reischl, curator
Building on the ideas of Daniel Arasse, the 2026 Frissen Exhibition explores the Renaissance thesis that a work of art inevitably reflects the individuality of its creator. Although the death of painting has been predicted many times—both since the advent of photography and from the perspective of critiques of capitalism—the genre has always been revitalized and strengthened through aesthetic and social self-reflection. The Műcsarnok’s seventh exhibition in the “one artist—one room—one curator” series seeks to answer the question of why artists paint today. This collection of personal exhibitions showcases the diversity of the profession through the latest abstract and figurative works by six Hungarian contemporary painters, brought directly from their studios.
Artist-curator pairs: Ákos Bánki and Szilvia Reischl, Réka Kaszás and Mária Kondor-Szilágyi, Gábor Király and Gréta Garami, Kati Könyv and Réka Fazakas, Tamás Menyhárt and Zoltán Rockenbauer, Kata Verebics and Anna Blanka Nagy