The exhibition places a special emphasis on the gesture of respect. The oeuvre is extremely rich in that it commemorates important masters, contemporaries, theorists, and poets with a single image. “Throughout my career, I aspire to be a continuation of our wonderful predecessors, the Masters, whom we respected, probed, and listened to so much when we were young. It was precisely because of the handicap in the public sphere/discourse/publicity that we needed those gatherings and discussions in the sixties when we could go, for example, to Dezső Korniss, who was working on his epoch-making illuminations at the time [...] and we all knew that we were witnessing the birth of great art.”[1] At the same time, the artist is constantly reflecting on her own earlier work, returning to motifs, forms, color combinations, and concepts.
The exhibition is divided into three parts. The first room features images related to paying homage, reflecting on the person, work, and influence of masters, spiritual friends, and relatives. These pieces are primarily large-scale paintings or painted, drawn, and inked portraits. In the second room, there is a sound installation entitled Sound—Color—Space, created by the artist in collaboration with composer László Vidovszky. In the third room, we exhibit paintings that commemorate the artist's own work. These are paintings and graphic sheets that are newer and newer reworkings of a motif, a theme, or a color scheme, such as the Painted Chest Studies, the Message series, individual pages and paintings of Képzelt tér [Imagined Space], or works that investigate the problematics of After-Image.
The selection in this room is intended to demonstrate how self-reflection, a commitment to one's own artistic identity and work, and a conscious assumption of the role as an artist, are reflected in a lifetime of work. “Belonging to a profession – that I am a painter or that I will become a painter – is something that gradually develops in one's mind. One recognizes that this is a thousands-year-old activity about belonging to a particular branch of humanity that has not changed much. Many people involved in artistic creation lack this awareness.”
Mária Kondor-Szilágyi
curator of the exhibition
[1]Aknai, T. (2000). p. 4.