Personal | Fresh 2021 | Márta Kucsora : Inception | Thought shaping substance

Márta Ku­cso­ra is one of the in­ter­na­ti­o­nally acc­la­i­med fi­gu­res of con­tem­por­ary Hun­ga­ri­an paint­ing. Her vib­rant, ex­pe­ri­men­tal pic­tu­res exp­lo­re the li­mits of ab­st­rac­ti­on. Her works ex­hi­bi­ted in the Mű­csar­nok form a se­pa­ra­te ca­te­gory wit­hin mo­dern and con­tem­por­ary vi­su­al rep­re­s­en­ta­ti­on mer­ely based on their size and stand as examp­les of true mo­nu­men­tal ab­st­rac­ti­on.

In the past two de­ca­des the art of Márta Ku­cso­ra has gra­du­ally shif­ted to exp­r­es­sive, at times even ly­ri­cal ab­st­rac­ti­on, espe­ci­ally to its vers­ion that finds its best exp­r­es­si­on in ges­tu­res and ex­pe­ri­men­ta­ti­on with ma­te­ri­als. An ever more subt­le qu­a­lity in the per­cept­ion and ren­di­ti­on of na­tu­re could al­re­ady be ob­ser­ved in her works from the 2000s. First we can see the power of water in mo­ti­on, the lash­ing of waves crea­ted th­ro­ugh an un­con­vent­io­nal splat­ter­ing of paint, and then her Planta­gram se­ri­es takes us clos­er to the inner micro-level of the flora, where the con­vent­io­nal met­hods of human per­cept­ion prove less and less ef­fec­tive.

In the last, more than one and a half de­ca­des Ku­cso­ra broke away from every di­rect con­nec­ti­on with forms ope­rat­ing in the world around us at a cus­to­ma­ry scale and ab­st­rac­ti­on at its pu­rest evol­ved as the gui­ding prin­cip­le of her paint­ings, wit­ho­ut ever be­com­ing re­pe­ti­tive. Her ever lar­ger can­vas­es pa­rade vir­tu­ally the en­ti­re co­lo­ur pa­let­te of the uni­ver­se, sol­idi­fi­ed in such flo­wing con­fi­gu­ra­tions that are se­e­mingly pro­du­ced by chance. The co­lo­urs of her paint­ings and the pat­terns the vie­wer ’re­cogn­i­ses’ in them switch off our con­vent­io­nal per­cept­ion of space and ori­en­ta­ti­on. We can­not de­fi­ne what we see: we must find a con­text for it in the nano-world or in the cos­mic space of daunt­ing di­men­sions. This uni­que ef­fect is furt­her en­han­ced by the all-over feel of the pic­tu­res, since we can­not see a squ­a­re inch that is su­bor­di­na­ted on the pic­tu­re’s sur­face or which could be iden­ti­fi­ed as a backg­round.

The key to ‘de­cip­he­ring’ Márta Ku­cso­ra’s paint­ings is not pro­vi­ded by signs and sym­bo­lic re­fe­ren­ces. The vie­wer must re­cogn­i­se the in­ter­play of na­tu­re’s phy­si­cal and che­mi­cal for­ces, whose ef­fect can be per­ce­i­ved, un­le­as­hed or ended on the pic­tu­re’s sur­face only to the ex­tent al­lo­wed by the ar­tist’s cont­rol and con­cept. The ar­tists of ab­st­ract exp­r­es­si­on­ism (Ta­ch­is­me in Euro­pe), which for­ged ahead in the mid-20th cent­ury and de­vel­oped into a lead­ing trend of re­cent de­ca­des, dis­carded tra­di­ti­o­nal paint­ing tools, espe­ci­ally the brush, and tech­ni­ques such as po­u­ring, drip­p­ing and splat­ter­ing paints, or pasting and scra­ping them with a knife came to the fore. Bes­ides Jack­son Pol­lock, we can ment­ion the Hun­ga­ri­an-born ar­tist François Fi­ed­ler, whose oeuvre was also pre­sen­ted by the Mű­csar­nok at a comp­re­hen­sive ex­hi­bit­ion at the turn of 2019 and 2020. The in­no­va­tive role pla­yed by women ar­tists break­ing out of the sha­dow of their male coun­ter­parts can be seen among the pre­cur­sors to the kind of ex­pe­ri­men­ta­ti­on – de­con­struc­ting the con­vent­io­nal li­mits of per­cept­ion and form – which pro­vi­des the es­sen­ce of Ku­cso­ra’s pic­tu­res. Examp­les of this cre­a­tive app­ro­ach inc­lu­de that of the Swe­dish Hilma af Klint, who took pi­o­ne­e­ring steps spe­ci­fi­cally to­wards ab­st­rac­ti­on in the early 20th cent­ury, and those of the Ame­ri­can ar­tists Joan Mit­chell, Perle Fine and Grace Hart­igan, who found their ful­lest exp­r­es­si­on in ab­st­ract exp­r­es­si­on­ism du­ring the Cold War pe­ri­od.

A ti­re­less ex­pe­ri­men­ta­ti­on with ma­te­ri­als ex­po­s­ed to the for­ces of na­tu­re and con­ti­nu­o­usly re­in­vent­ing itself, akin to work car­ried out in sci­en­ce labs, forms the core of the pic­tu­res ex­hi­bi­ted here. Ran­dom­ness is only an il­lu­si­on. The ar­tist de­signs and tests dif­fe­rent ideas and sce­na­ri­os in her head be­fo­re start­ing the cre­a­tive pro­cess of apply­ing layers of ma­te­ri­al, with va­ri­o­us proper­ti­es and co­lo­urs, on the can­vas one after the other, which then eit­her mix with each other or re­pul­se each other. The pain­ter de­ter­mi­nes the length of this uni­que dance of ma­te­ri­als. She moves the can­vas about, splat­ters paint on it, slants it or leaves it, at times spee­ding up the pro­cess of drying and at other times de­lay­ing it. The layers of co­lo­ur and paint are in­de­cip­herably over­la­id, mak­ing it im­pos­sib­le for the vie­wer to tell which layer is at the top of the sur­face and which is un­der­neath, which co­lo­ur was the first and which the last. In many of the paint­ings the pat­terns crea­te the imp­r­es­si­on of cal­li­gra­phy swir­ling on the pic­tu­re’s sur­face and stif­fen in ener­ge­tic ges­tu­res are ac­tu­ally layers break­ing to the sur­face from un­der­neath, thus lend­ing the works a ge­o­log­i­cal cha­rac­ter. The ini­ti­ally vivid co­lo­urs ver­ging on bright neon tones un­der­went a gra­du­al chan­ge in re­cent years in Márta Ku­cso­ra’s art along with her many other in­no­va­tive ex­pe­ri­ments in her oeuvre where one se­ri­es fol­lows the next in quick succ­es­si­on. The size of the pic­tu­res now ex­hi­bi­ted at the Mű­csar­nok and the comp­lex tech­ni­que the ar­tist used to make them out­weigh the ma­jo­rity of her ear­li­er ab­st­ract ex­pe­ri­ments and is co­up­led with the ef­fect ex­er­ted by these works on the vie­wers, thus creat­ing a uni­que, now vir­tu­ally un­pa­ral­le­led mo­nu­men­tal ab­st­rac­ti­on. The mo­ve­ment cap­tu­red on the can­vas sets the au­di­en­ce in mo­ti­on too: it be­co­mes im­pos­sib­le to view the paint­ings from one sing­le, fixed point.

In Márta Ku­cso­ra’s paint­ing the ima­ges are sha­ped by the for­ces of na­tu­re. Gra­vity and che­mistry are each only one inst­ru­ment in the per­for­mance, whose con­duc­tor is the ar­tist herself: they could not come to life on their own. The la­test front­line of 21st-cent­ury ab­st­rac­ti­on is con­ce­i­ved th­ro­ugh the in­cept­ion of the ar­tist’s cre­a­ti­vity that sets the ma­te­ri­als in mo­ti­on.

The video ins­tal­la­tions made spe­ci­fi­cally for this ex­hi­bit­ion uni­qu­ely il­lustra­te the ar­tist’s app­ro­ach to the in­ter­play of ma­te­ri­als and phy­si­cal for­ces; they can be vie­wed in a sanc­tu­ary-like dark room in the midd­le of the ex­hi­bit­ion space. In there the per­cept­ion of the ex­ter­nal world disap­pe­ars and the vie­wer’s mind is en­gag­ed sol­ely by the me­di­ta­tive mo­ve­ment of the co­lo­urs flo­wing and swir­ling above. The end­less flow was made in Márta Ku­cso­ra’s stu­dio and the scre­e­ned fo­o­tage is unal­te­red, wit­ho­ut any com­pu­ter-as­sis­ted gra­phic post-pro­duc­ti­on. What we see in the vi­de­os is the same as that in the ex­hi­bi­ted pic­tu­res: ma­te­ri­al dri­ven by the laws of che­mistry and phy­sics, whose exact di­men­sions we can­not im­me­dia­tely comp­re­hend. The so­unds ac­com­pa­ny­ing the fo­o­tage are taken from na­tu­re but here too ran­dom­ness is only an il­lu­si­on. Márta Ku­cso­ra sets the vor­tex of co­lo­urs in mo­ti­on using her spe­ci­al tech­ni­que and the na­tu­ral pro­cess lasts exactly up to the point the ar­tist al­lows it.

Péter Ant­al­ffy

2021. December 15. - 2022. February 13.
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2021. December 8. - 2022. February 20.
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COUNTDOWN – The Art of Márton Barabás