Metamorphosis
Sebastião Salgado – Olga Tobreluts – Jozef Suchoža
In the beginning, the cosmic connectedness of the Earth was deeply rooted in the human experience: it gave people their gods and the celebrations each year. Then, only the initiated were privy to the ancient wisdom. By now, what was once a universal knowledge of the cosmos has faded and has only survived in all but forgotten myths and symbols.
All that is living breathes. Earth breathes. In spring and summer it breathes in. It inhales the energy of the cosmos and the Sun. Nature regenerates every year. It changes its appearance. In autumn and winter it exhales, as if it was returning its soul to the cosmos. The Earth appears dead but then it comes back to life in the next cosmic power-cycle. It is in a state of constant transformation.
There is an analogy between the macrocosm and the human microcosm. We are able to experience metamorphosis through the arts as something sacred. Salgado’s b&w art creates a uniquely powerful magic of rebirth – the exhibition Genesis is a confession that has travelled many countries. And the photographer’s exemplary personal contribution is appreciated by all: at the height of his career Salgado and his family left Paris to return to their native Brazil, where they repatriated the destroyed rainforest on their lands. Olga Tobreluts returned to the ancient knowledge in her painting: her pictures preserve the human-scale tales of cosmic metamorphoses mediated by the myths of ancient gods. As a revolutionary act, she and the other artists of the New Academy in St Petersburg reintroduced the themes and artisan traditions of painting into the pictorial idiom. Tobreluts creatively combines the old-new values of culture by means of the most modern imaging techniques in her art. In his spatial art Jozef Suchoža transforms the most elemental human experience, that of life and death, into the subtlest sculptural dance. Majestic ancient rites and their symbols are revived into a contemporary cult in his spaces.
Műcsarnok’s Metamorphosis - three loosely linked exhibitions - confirms that there are still artists with a pure vision, those able to connect to a wider intellectual/spiritual dimension. The universal language of the visual arts has the power now - as it has had for millennia - to mediate transcendental transformations: it reaches out to seekers through images.