Gyula Konkoly, Figurative pictures

Two exhibitions of Gyula Konkoly's work overlap for a week. One is at the Dorottya Gallery, (Budapest, V. Dorottya u. 8.), where visitors can see the artist's Foliage pictures and the other at the Ernst Museum, (Budapest, VI. Nagymezo u. 8.), where we are holding an exhibition of some of Konkoly's figurative pictures.

At the Ernst Museum, we are showing a representative selction of Konkoly's figurative pictures. Among the pictures shown, one of the earliest, entitled The presence of the Muse at the art school, was done in 1964. From this early picture right up to December 2002, we can follow the process of figurativeness as it appears in Konkoly's art. The 13 original lithographs shown at the Dorottya Gallery, the so-called Foliage pictures (1997) are a good counterpoint to the paintings in sharp geometric forms, with hard constrasts. The foliage represented from above in patches, shows elusiveness, nature as unquantifiable and that cannot be possessed and its constant movement, as opposed to the paintings at the Ernst Museum, which are characterised by their concrete, countable and static nature. Due to the unusual geometric sections, emphasis is placed on the fact that this is just a piece, a part of reality, chosen according to preference(or even intentionally). However, the vigour put across by the figures, shows a different kind of movement than that in the Foliage pictures. Here we are concerned with a momentary and artificial break in time, while in the Foliage pictures, it is movement itself which is represented.

Konkoly intentionally plays with the frequent realistic character, similar to photographs, of the paintings. We often feel as if the life-size figures are in front of or behind the canvas, but absolutely not on it, that instead of a surface, the canvas fulfils the function of something similar to glass: it divides the inside from the outside. It reflects.

Konkoly is radically consistent and consistently radical. We must take him seriously!

A catalogue to go with the exhibition is being written.
Some of the works on show can be purchased at the Ernst Museum.