Half-light | György Szemadám remembers half-forgotten artists

Withd­ra­wals and se­pa­ra­te ways at a time of cons­o­li­da­ti­on

Half-light

György Sze­ma­dám rem­em­bers half-for­got­ten ar­tists

Half-light, part of the the group of ex­hi­bit­ions Withd­ra­wals and se­pa­ra­te ways at a time of cons­o­li­da­ti­on pre­sents “dis­sident” pain­ters and sculp­tors, who, in spite of the cir­cum­stan­ces of the age, re­ma­ined fa­ith­ful to their moral prin­cip­les and swam aga­inst the cur­rent, as a re­sult of which the ma­jo­rity of their works re­ma­in litt­le known to the ge­ne­ral pub­lic.

This ex­hi­bit­ion wis­hes to pay ho­mage to these ar­tists: seven de­ce­as­ed men, whom the po­wers that be clas­si­fi­ed as self-taught ar­tists, and whom the ma­jo­rity of aut­ho­ri­ta­tive art his­to­ri­ans ten­ded to neg­lect. Con­se­qu­ently, they fai­led to make it to the canon, and their work has lar­gely re­ma­ined grey area in the his­to­ry of con­tem­por­ary art. We owe a debt to the work of de­ce­as­ed ar­tists, who were not only im­por­tant in the six­ti­es and se­ven­ti­es, but stand their ground today, pro­vi­ding cru­ci­al in­for­ma­ti­on to ex­haus­ti­vely chart­ing the art scene of the pe­ri­od.

The seven ar­tists are Bocz Gyula, Ce­rovsz­ki Iván, Csu­to­ros Sán­dor, Dom­bay Győző, Li­szi­ák Elek, Ócsai Ká­roly és Szeift Béla.

Pro­du­ced in con­junc­ti­on with the ex­hi­bit­ion is a 52-mi­nute film, in which col­le­agues, scho­lars in va­ri­o­us dis­cip­li­nes and pub­lic fi­gu­res talk about their fri­ends­hip and mem­ori­es of the seven ar­tists pre­sen­ted at the ex­hi­bit­ion.