Simultaneously – Studio Visits

Vir­tu­al tour: http://​mu­csar­nok.​hu/​pan​oram​afot​o/​egy_​ido­ben/
Vir­tu­al tour EXTRA - Tic­kets: https://​www.​jegy­mes­ter.​hu/​hun/​Event/​6000532/​Vir­tu­a­lis-​seta-​extra-​%7C-​Egy-​ido­ben---​Stu​diol​atog​atas​ok

STAY­ING FRESH – 2020

2020 has been turned into an ext­ra­or­di­nary year by the pan­de­mic. Our ins­ti­tu­ti­on seems to be able to con­ti­nue the se­ri­es Fresh fea­tu­ring „one ar­tist – one hall – one cura­tor” (or at least we hope this will re­ma­in the case). This type of ex­hi­bit­ion is based on the stu­dio – ex­hi­bit­ion space ana­logy for­med by the Kun­sthal­le’s en­semb­le of rooms re­mi­nis­cent of sun-lit ate­li­ers. Ex­hi­bit­ions like Fresh mostly pro­vi­de snaps­hots of the oeuvres of ar­tists in the midd­le of their ca­re­ers, who in the best-case sce­na­rio work in their own stu­dios. Hence, their joint pre­s­en­ta­ti­on in the Kun­sthal­le in ad­ja­cent spa­ces som­ew­hat al­le­via­tes their lon­el­i­ness, while ope­ning up the chance for dia­lo­gue. To­get­her these one-room shows, each fea­tu­ring a dif­fe­rent genre and ar­tis­tic app­ro­ach, let us see a small cross-sec­ti­on every year.

The ad­ja­cent ex­hi­bit­ions crea­te an ad­di­ti­o­nal ex­pe­ri­en­ce to both the ar­tists and the pub­lic, inad­vert­ently ins­pi­ring con­nec­tions and com­pa­ri­sons bet­ween the dif­fe­rent in­terp­re­ta­tions. In­de­ed, this is an exp­ress int­ent­ion of the Kun­sthal­le. Lay­men and pro­fes­si­o­nals can equ­ally dis­co­ver ar­tists at the Fresh shows who were out­si­de their scope of in­te­rest be­fo­re. In an ideal si­tu­a­ti­on, this layout can even ge­ne­ra­te the much-de­si­red openn­ess of art app­re­ci­a­ti­on, while vi­si­tors and ar­tists are also given the chance to exp­lo­re va­ri­o­us ar­tis­tic app­ro­a­ches and con­cept­ions. This kind of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on is never ver­bal in na­tu­re but pri­ma­rily cons­ti­tu­tes and re­qu­i­res vi­su­al in­tel­lec­tu­al eff­ort. Even when the auras of the works in one ex­hi­bit­ion hall are ope­ned up, the in­ter­re­la­tions and in­ter­fe­ren­ce of ener­gi­es as well as the sy­ner­gi­es bet­ween works ar­rang­ed ac­cord­ing to the cura­tor’s con­cept can be per­ce­i­ved. It might seem mys­te­ri­o­us at first to en­coun­ter som­eth­ing beyond the au­to­no­mous in­tel­lec­tu­al-sen­sory ex­pe­ri­en­ce ge­ne­rally al­lo­wed by the pyra­mi­dal vi­si­on of a work of art but the Mű­csar­nok’s ex­hi­bit­ion in­vi­tes vie­wers to do just that: to in­terp­ret these works by me­tap­ho­ri­cally cros­sing th­ro­ugh walls.

Thus far 35 ar­tists have been given the op­por­tunity in the Kun­sthal­le to have a solo show with a plus. The ex­hi­bit­ions Fresh, Nine Ate­li­ers and Spa­ces (ap)art al­lo­wed the pub­lic to take a peek into the ’stu­dios’ of 26 ar­tists. This year anot­her nine stu­dios will pre­sent their ins­pi­ring worlds to the art-lo­ving pub­lic and the pro­fes­si­o­nal com­mu­nity. In the int­ro­duc­ti­on of the ca­ta­lo­gue for Spa­ces (ap)art in 2019, And­rás Bán lo­o­ked at the show in the con­text of the Kun­sthal­le’s re­cent past stat­ing that “a si­mil­ar app­ro­ach was taken to stu­dios by the One Week shows, ini­tia­ted by Júlia Fa­bé­nyi (2003, 2005). There was also a show lin­ked to the space of cre­a­ti­on itself: Ka­ta­lin Ke­se­rü’s Ar­tists and Ate­li­ers in the Ernst Mus­e­um (2002). Tak­ing a broa­der view, all the salon type ex­hi­bit­ions can be said to have the same un­derly­ing idea, na­mely to do­cu­ment the ex­ci­te­ment [which cri­tics call: bor­edom] of the given mo­ment”. I be­li­eve that the lat­ter sar­cas­tic app­ro­ach and close-mind­ed at­ti­tu­de is no more than a pas­sing phase.

To prove that bor­edom is out of the quest­ion this year too and to evoke the cu­ri­o­sity of the re­aders, let me share some in­sights by the cura­tors about the ex­hi­bit­ions fea­tu­ring the ar­tists they in­vi­ted to disp­lay their works this year:

Nóra Soós “A de­fi­ning fea­tu­re of her sove­reign pain­terly lan­gu­age is tran­spa­rency: fi­gu­res and ob­jects from va­ri­o­us pe­ri­ods and cul­t­u­ral mi­li­e­us pain­ted in dif­fe­rent sca­les and from unu­su­al pers­pec­ti­ves are su­per­im­po­s­ed in the layers of her works. Her vi­go­rous pa­let­te exu­des ca­ref­ree joy and fri­endly in­for­ma­lity, while her com­po­sit­ions often add­ress grave is­sues and pr­es­sing prob­lems such as the pan­de­mic and cli­ma­te chan­ge.” (cura­tor: Dóra De­ko­vics)

Lász­ló Tenk “re­gards paint­ing as a means of self-exp­lo­ra­ti­on and dis­co­ver­ing the world. His works are con­ce­i­ved in spe­ci­al mo­ments when con­temp­la­ti­on and dra­wing a ba­lance are si­mul­ta­ne­o­usly pre­sent. His con­sis­tent un-tren­di­ness en­ab­les him to evoke a uni­vers­al tim­eless­ness: he is en­gag­ed in a dia­lo­gue with na­tu­re, ob­ser­ving as her com­pa­n­ion the li­ving be­ings and lands­ca­pes, which ap­pear in his paint­ings as ma­ni­fe­sta­tions of crea­ted­ness bring­ing peace for him and ot­hers. Lász­ló Tenk has been paint­ing for 50 years. Every day. What­ever the state of the world, what­ever obsta­c­le/hards­hip he is up aga­inst, he paints…” (cura­tor: Szil­via Re­ischl) 

Gábor Fülöp “bril­li­antly car­ves the ar­c­hetypes, human-scale fi­gu­res, of clas­si­cal sculp­tu­re out of wood. His life-size fi­gu­res are ma­inly be­au­ti­ful fe­male bo­di­es and often myt­ho­log­i­cal cha­rac­ters with eit­her their en­ti­re sur­face co­ve­red in pat­terns de­ri­ved from the flora (leaves, flo­wers, mush­rooms) or fauna (la­dybirds, fish sca­les) or being hol­lo­wed out so that only their outer shell is kept, their sur­face being pun­ched or given an une­ven fi­nish.  Their pos­tu­re, pose and pro­por­tions often evoke an­ti­que sculp­tu­re, while the plant and ani­mal mo­tifs app­li­ed to their sur­face and their sym­bi­o­tic bond with the human body can be lin­ked with both Man­ner­ism and Sur­re­al­ism.” (cura­tor: Ma­ri­an­na Mayer)

Péter Riz­mayer “be­longs to the new ge­ne­ra­ti­on of ar­tists for whom Gaia, our world, and na­tu­re are not the­mes but their chance to iden­ti­fy with them. His app­ro­ach – with »ma­te­ri­al-sav­ing« vi­de­os and per­for­man­ces – is not con­ce­i­ved in the vein of cri­tic­ism but rat­her pat­hos, hol­ding the pro­mi­se of in­teg­rity.” (cura­tor: And­rás Bán)

Győző Byhon “has de­vel­oped his ar­tis­tic tech­ni­que with great care over the past fif­teen years. He sees ur­ba­ni­sa­ti­on as a Janus-faced phe­no­me­non: on the one hand it is the hig­hest-level or­ga­ni­sed pro­cess of human so­ci­ety, and on the other hand, when in­tact na­tu­re is enc­ro­a­ched upon by buil­dings, it au­to­ma­ti­cally evokes as­so­ci­a­tions with the no­ti­on of ‘Pa­ra­di­se lost’. The paint­ings ex­hi­bi­ted here also erect a me­mo­ri­al to cur­rent events that we en­coun­ter in the news on a daily basis.” (cura­tor: Zol­tán Rocken­ba­u­er)

Zsó­fia Bérczi: “De­sert temp­le. The title of the ex­hi­bit­ion in­vi­tes us to ex­pe­ri­en­ce the sac­red­ness of the end­less de­sert and the skin that co­vers our whole body. A spi­ri­tu­al credo un­folds th­ro­ugh her pure, often al­most geo­met­ri­cal com­po­sit­ions: the pi­e­ces of her pho­to­gra­phic se­ri­es can be sym­bo­li­cally seen as the sta­tions of the path to­wards inner fre­e­dom fol­lo­wed by women with their fre­e­dom rest­ric­ted on the out­si­de.” (cura­tor: Il­di­kó Éri)

Réka Ger­gely “com­pos­es her sculp­tu­res from steel and a na­tu­ral ma­te­ri­al (wood, coal, ash). Th­ro­ugh her cho­i­ce of ma­te­ri­al she emp­ha­si­ses the pas­sing of time and shows the stage in an art­work’s his­to­ry that the ar­tist has no cont­rol over, i.e. when it starts li­ving its own life. The idea un­der­pin­ning her works stri­kes a per­fect ba­lance bet­ween Far Ea­s­tern and Wes­tern phi­lo­sop­hi­es. The app­ro­ach in her sculp­tu­re most clos­ely re­semb­les Ja­pa­ne­se aest­he­tics.” (cura­tor: Mária Kon­dor-Szi­lá­gyi)

Zol­tán Bán­föl­di “si­mul­ta­ne­o­usly pre­sents the cha­rac­te­r­is­tic fea­tu­res of Vi­en­na in the late 19th cent­ury and today in his 26-piece se­ri­es. For the re­ci­pi­ent vie­wing the su­per­im­po­s­ed layers the tem­po­ral and spa­ti­al cha­rac­te­r­is­tics of this urban mi­li­eu are blur­red into each other as are the an­ci­ent tech­ni­que of enc­aus­tic paint­ing and the mo­dern tech­ni­ques of pho­to­gra­phy and com­pu­ter tech­no­logy. His works evoke the un­certainty prin­cip­le known from qu­an­tum phy­sics (Sch­röd­in­ger’s Cat).” (cura­tor: Réka Fa­za­kas)

Tibor Pa­ta­ki: “Books have their des­ti­ni­es. This old say­ing un­folds in Pa­ta­ki’s works span­ning gen­res. Ar­tists’ books, as­semb­la­ges, gic­lée prints, vir­tu­al and real book ob­jects and even clas­si­cal paint­ings are side by side in con­fo­und­ing ways: we see book des­ti­ni­es or rat­her human des­ti­ni­es. The rhe­to­ri­cal quest­ion is not left unans­we­red. Pa­ta­ki’s ly­ri­cal can­vas­es are exe­cu­ted with en­gi­ne­e­ring pre­ci­si­on and move us pro­fo­undly.” (cura­tor: György Szegő)

 

5 Sep­tem­ber 2020                                                                           

György Szegő DLA

 ar­tis­tic di­rec­tor

2020. October 28. - 2021. January 10.

Kunsthalle, Budapest

Tickets
2020. September 11. - November 8.
Previous exhibition

József Kadosa Kiss: The order of Art – Arte legis

2020. November 6. - 2021. February 28.
Next exhibition

Beat Fest. János Kőbányai’s Photographs