The Whole through the Parts | Art of András Baranyay

“…the de­ta­il re­fers to the whole, and a drop evokes the en­ti­re sea.”

The title of the ex­hi­bit­ion was ins­pi­red by the above quote from a ma­nuscript by And­rás Ba­ra­nyay, which is about the met­hod of vi­su­al fra­m­ing used in the cre­a­tive pro­cess. As the ar­tist said, this tech­ni­que “…is su­i­tab­le for creat­ing the il­lu­si­on of re­a­lity and to vi­su­ally cap­tu­re the mo­men­tary na­tu­re of life along with its in­he­rent mo­ti­on, while exp­r­es­sing chance and in­comp­le­ti­on. It con­ce­als things, the exis­ten­ce of which we can only sur­mi­se, and this va­gue­ness is un­sett­ling. But by omitt­ing what is ir­re­le­vant, by cut­ting off the re­dun­dant ele­ments, it can be an ef­fec­tive tool of comp­r­es­si­on and emp­ha­sis, thanks to which the es­sen­ce of things is pre­sen­ted as if con­den­sed into an ext­ract…”

Be­g­in­ning with Ba­ra­nyay’s ear­li­est paint­ings and gra­phic works, the ex­hi­bit­ion pre­sents a cross sec­ti­on of the ar­tist’s en­ti­re oeuvre. The works are ar­rang­ed around the­mes and an app­ro­xi­ma­te ch­ro­no­logy.

The focus of Ba­ra­nyay’s in­te­rest as an ar­tist was the human body: in his nu­me­rous self-port­ra­its and hand de­pic­tions he used his own body, while the bo­di­es of his fri­ends al­lo­wed him to ob­ser­ve the forms dif­fe­rent from his own body in his se­ri­es The Mar­ried Co­up­le, Pic­tu­res of Backs, Hands­ha­kes and The Már­ffy Girls.

A spe­ci­al place is as­sign­ed in the ex­hi­bit­ion as well as in the oeuvre to the en­semb­le of works tit­led Self-port­ra­it with Jane Mor­ris, pre­sent­ing Ba­ra­nyay’s only ex­pe­ri­men­tal film.

While And­rás Ba­ra­nyay’s oeuvre is a fun­da­men­tal and we could say clas­si­cal chap­ter in the his­to­ry of Hun­ga­ri­an con­tem­por­ary fine arts, it is not so well known to the broa­der com­mu­nity of art-lo­ving au­di­en­ces. His art is a uni­que vi­su­al dia­lo­gue with phi­lo­sop­hers, com­pos­ers and writers such as Ki­er­ke­ga­ard, Erik Satie and Dezső Tan­do­ri, al­lo­wing him to be one of those mem­bers of the Ipar­terv group of ar­tists who found their own, in­di­vi­du­al lan­gu­age of exp­r­es­si­on. The comp­re­hen­sive ex­hi­bit­ion fea­tu­ring the oeuvre of the Kos­suth Prize la­u­rea­te ar­tist, who pas­sed away in 2016, inc­lu­des in­ter­views in which many of his fel­low ar­tists, fri­ends and pu­pils speak, mak­ing it unam­bi­gu­o­usly clear that their fri­ends­hip or per­so­nal mee­tings with Ba­ra­nyay was a point of re­fe­ren­ce for them on their own ar­tis­tic paths.

The ex­hi­bit­ion de­vo­ted to the art of And­rás Ba­ra­nyay was co-or­ga­ni­sed by the 125-year-old Mű­csar­nok and Mis­si­onArt Gal­lery, which ce­le­b­ra­tes the 30^th an­ni­ver­sary of its fo­un­da­ti­on.

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