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Tamás HENCZE
Atmospheric Space

Tamás HENCZE

Atmospheric Space

Year(s)
1976
Technique
oil on paper
Size
100x70 cm
Artist's introduction

Tamás Hencze considered Dezső Korniss to be his master and the Zugló Circle – which examined abstract art and the theoretical work of Béla Hamvas – as his school. He was a winner of the Kossuth Prize and a member of the Széchenyi Academy of Letters and Arts. His painting practice, which initially focused on the directness of the gesture and the Pop art collage, became individually motivated in the second half of the 1960s. He used stencils and a rubber roller when spreading the evenly applied (black) paint, creating precise transitions and eliciting pulsating spatial effects on the picture plane. The dynamic, repetitive, saturated, fading and empty surfaces appeared as the universal rhythm of life. The structures of his paintings – which "emerged from the point" – coincided with the era's scientific worldview and the minimalist attitude in the arts. His works could also be connected to the Op-art movement, which sought to examine vision. However, Hencze relied on a more complex understanding of perception, introducing the picturesque experience of appearance and disappearance. These works were featured in the unofficial exhibitions at the end of the decade (e.g. Iparterv, 1968) and subsequently in European exhibitions displaying contemporary Hungarian art. In the 1980s, he reinterpreted his images from the beginning of his career: he "froze" huge gestures on large canvases, which were seen as part of the era's postmodern turn. These works were not straightforward gestural paintings but exact reproductions of gestures constructed with templates, rubber cylinders, a few intensely saturated colours, and light, which lent the moment's spatial-material (iconic) reality frozen onto the picture plane. In his work on paper, Hencze occasionally lined up the technical tools connected to the creative process of these more recent gestural images, such as the scissor, the ruler and the various geometric shapes. Katalin Keserü

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András ERNSZT
Transparent I.

András ERNSZT

Transparent I.

Year(s)
2018
Technique
acrylic and silkscreen print on canvas
Size
50x50 cm
Artist's introduction

András Ernszt currently lives and works in Pécs. He studied at the University of Pécs, where his masters were László Valkó and Ilona Keserü Ilona. He received a DLA (Doctor of Liberal Arts) degree at this university in 2009, and since 2010, he has been an assistant professor at the Department of Painting, Faculty of Arts. In 1997, he spent a period in Munich as the winner of the DAAD Scholarship. In 2001, he was awarded the Eötvös Scholarship from the Hungarian State and in 2003 the Strabag Painting Prize from the Ludwig Museum. Since 1997, he has had regular solo exhibitions and participated in group shows in Hungarian and international galleries: in Pécs, Budapest, Brussels and Stuttgart, among various other locations. András Ernszt's paintings are constantly moving, dynamic colour compositions. The slight deviation of the paint layers from the picture plane creates a characteristic, three-dimensional effect, apart from the various spatial and kinetic illusions. The structuring and layering of material plays a significant role in his work, and a reductive utilisation of colour accompanies this. The almost monochrome tones guide the viewer's attention to the material, to the painterly elaboration of the various surfaces and the deployed technical apparatus. The complexity of the images is increased by the light-shadow effects caused by the layering and the intricate interplay between the different hues of various colours. The viewer cannot find fixed points on the canvases: various formations are positioned on top of each other, while the resulting layering adds depth to them. Their disharmonious arrangement lends them a powerful set of dynamics. The paintings of Ernszt reveal a cavalcade of restless forms, constantly searching for their final destination, shaped by random movement.

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András ERNSZT
Transparent I.

András ERNSZT

Transparent I.

Year(s)
2018
Technique
acrylic and silkscreen print on canvas
Size
50x50 cm
Artist's introduction

András Ernszt currently lives and works in Pécs. He studied at the University of Pécs, where his masters were László Valkó and Ilona Keserü Ilona. He received a DLA (Doctor of Liberal Arts) degree at this university in 2009, and since 2010, he has been an assistant professor at the Department of Painting, Faculty of Arts. In 1997, he spent a period in Munich as the winner of the DAAD Scholarship. In 2001, he was awarded the Eötvös Scholarship from the Hungarian State and in 2003 the Strabag Painting Prize from the Ludwig Museum. Since 1997, he has had regular solo exhibitions and participated in group shows in Hungarian and international galleries: in Pécs, Budapest, Brussels and Stuttgart, among various other locations. András Ernszt's paintings are constantly moving, dynamic colour compositions. The slight deviation of the paint layers from the picture plane creates a characteristic, three-dimensional effect, apart from the various spatial and kinetic illusions. The structuring and layering of material plays a significant role in his work, and a reductive utilisation of colour accompanies this. The almost monochrome tones guide the viewer's attention to the material, to the painterly elaboration of the various surfaces and the deployed technical apparatus. The complexity of the images is increased by the light-shadow effects caused by the layering and the intricate interplay between the different hues of various colours. The viewer cannot find fixed points on the canvases: various formations are positioned on top of each other, while the resulting layering adds depth to them. Their disharmonious arrangement lends them a powerful set of dynamics. The paintings of Ernszt reveal a cavalcade of restless forms, constantly searching for their final destination, shaped by random movement.

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Tamás KONOK
Excluded Red Square

Tamás KONOK

Excluded Red Square

Year(s)
2008
Technique
acrylic on canvas
Size
180x200 cm
Artist's introduction

Tamás Konok studied painting at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts between 1948 and 1953 as a student of Aurél Bernáth. He emigrated to Paris in 1959. He turned away from naturalistic painting and developed his lyrical geometric style from the 1970s, in which sensitive linear drawing plays a critical role. Galerie Lambert organised his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1960. From the 1970s, Konok and his wife, the sculptor Katalin Hetey lived in Paris and Zurich. Konok worked in close contact with Schlégl Gallery in Zurich and regularly exhibited in French, Swiss, Dutch and Swedish galleries and museums. He returned to Hungary with a solo exhibition in 1980. Since the 1990s, he has been staying and working in Budapest on a regular basis. His work attempted to capture transcendental, timeless realms of meaning: he sought to depict the forces, energies, and relations that drive the universe with his concrete, geometric shapes and linear systems. His musical studies had a profound influence on his art; thus, in his work, he paid attention to the perfect articulation of sound, rhythm, and line navigation. In addition to his "Apollonian" notion of art, which shaped his precise compositions and architectonic pictorial structures, he was also committed to renewing his painting practice during his seven-decade career. The central element of his painterly experiments – based on small-scale collages – could be grasped in the forever evolving pictorial structures, motifs and the dynamic changes in the artist's palette. Krisztina Szipőcs

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Aladár ALMÁSY
Hiding the reform goals into a iron lung. From the 3rd book of Horatius Odes

Aladár ALMÁSY

Hiding the reform goals into a iron lung. From the 3rd book of Horatius Odes

Year(s)
2019
Technique
pastel, watercolour and ink on paper
Size
56x75,5 cm
Artist's introduction

Aladár Almásy is one of the most distinctive figures of the generation of graphic artists of the 1970s, whose graphic universe is defined by mystical-psychological symbolism, romantic sensibility and linguistic humour. Noémi Szabó, art historian, described his distinctive character vividly: "He is invested in a romantic-surrealist eclecticism, constructing a dream world far from the current age, full of pretension, but at the same time honesty as well." Born in Debrecen, Almásy completed his graphic studies at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts in 1976. In the 1970s, together with Imre Szemethy, he was the successor of the generation of graphic artists that had defined the previous decade and had established an important tendency and which was marked by the names of Béla Kondor, Arnold Gross, Csaba Rékassy and Ádám Würtz. His first works were etchings, lithographs, aquatints, mezzotints, and pen and ink drawings. His aesthetic world was characterised by jagged, fragmented draughtsmanship, dreamlike, surreal visions and playful linguistic humour. His numerous national solo exhibitions were accompanied by several international exhibitions. In his scandalous statement of 1978, he described himself as an individualistic dreamer: "My existence is a unique visual world of forms, determined by inner emotions, a pure inexhaustible world view, never committed to any fix direction." He gradually drifted towards painting in the 1980s, combining cloud-like patches of colour with his broken line work. His art, which looked to the past, evoked the poetic mood of turn-of-the-century symbolism, from the metaphorical enigma of Baudelaire to the nostalgic dreamscapes of Lajos Gulácsy. The heroes of his poetic narratives are often drawn from cultural history (István Széchenyi, Martin Luther, Zarathustra, etc.). Around the turn of the millennium, the medium of bronze sculpture also appeared in his œuvre, which embraces a wide range of techniques. His successful start to his career was accompanied by numerous state awards in the 1970s and 1980s. He lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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Szilárd CSEKE
Aveo Pink and Red

Szilárd CSEKE

Aveo Pink and Red

Year(s)
2018
Technique
acrylic and lacquer on canvas
Size
100x130 cm
Artist's introduction

Szilárd Cseke is one of the well-known artists of the generation who entered the scene in the 1990s, becoming known at home and internationally for his decorative, bright forest paintings and kinetic installations. Emese Révész analysed his painterly vision as a typical attitude of the 2000s: 'Cseke's painterly attitude is also a generational creed, the basic idea of which is the rehabilitation of painterly beauty, the defiant embrace of "pleasure painting". Returning to the old role of the painter, he is an illusionist who creates experiences, and his painting is both an object of relaxation and meditation." Szilárd Cseke, born in Pápa, studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Pécs and then at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts during the regime change. He first constructed mobile works of art from plastic, car tyres and fans, then painted monochrome still-lifes and storyboard-like scenes with soft, ephemeral brushwork. He found his distinctive stylistic world in the early 2000s as a prominent representative of the new mainstream of digital image-based painting emerging at the turn of the millennium. His decorative period, which began in 2002, with its serene mood, analysed the romantic, symbolic duality of forest trees and sky in a post-digital optical experience. He broke down the photo-based landscape into layers and then built up the image space step by step, creating a varied facture. In places, he scraped back or sanded back the smeared, painted, dripped-dotted oil, acrylic, enamel and lacquer paint. The rich surfaces of different properties and craft pushed the conceptual boundaries of digital image-making and traditional fine art. As art historian Sándor Hornyik said: "From a distance, the painting as a whole gives the impression of a digialtised photograph, but up close, the complexity of the 'ground' is revealed; the green patches do not break down into pixels but are organised into subtle brushstrokes (...) What is exciting about the end result is that it is both painterly and hyper-modern. The generic subject becomes secondary, but the technical complexity works brilliantly." After the emblematic forest paintings, Cseke returned to compositions following life and then built kinetic, conceptual installations with motors – analysing social relations. His largest installation ensemble, Sustainable Identities, was presented at the Hungarian pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2015. Constantly experimenting with new techniques, around 2020, Cseke revisited forest paintings, reverting to nature, in bright visionary colours, in response to the urban lifestyle changed by the pandemic. Cseke lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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István GELLÉR B.
Sitter at the Window

István GELLÉR B.

Sitter at the Window

Year(s)
1974
Technique
tempera on paper
Size
49x41 cm
Artist's introduction

The geometric painting practice of B. István Gellér is unique among the aspirations of the Hungarian Neo-Avant-Garde. The emblematic structures of his 1970s artworks, which were constructed with softer lines, but edited with symmetrical rigour, are typical domestic examples of Pop art-influenced Signal Painting. One of the most critical issues of progressive Hungarian painting in the 1960s was the reconciliation of global trends and local traditions, which notion defined the artistic practice of Gellér as well. His passion for drawing led him as a child to Ferenc Martyn, followed by the free school of Ferenc Lantos. His trip to Western Europe deeply inspired him in the late 1960s. During his visit to London, he got acquainted with the work of Bridget Riley, Frank Stella and Victor Vasarely. Combining his recent international experiences with the local artistic traditions of Pécs, he developed an organic and symbolic geometric language. He sought to create an internationally relevant, locally inspired, but at the same time personally motivated artistic voice. His recurring motifs include the almost anthropomorphic, three-lobed, softened triangle, the "embracing" shapes, and the box-like space enhanced with a sense of depth utilising perspective. He endowed his geometric shapes – which filled the entire surface – with personal meaning far removed from the essence of Geometric Abstraction. He was less interested in theoretical problems than in the lyrical transformation of symbols. He worked on creating a "geometry of personal credibility" based on individual truths. Fanni Magyar

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Zsuzsa MOIZER
The singing flower

Zsuzsa MOIZER

The singing flower

Year(s)
2016
Technique
oil on canvas
Size
80x80 cm
Artist's introduction

Zsuzsa Moizer graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2004, majoring in painting. She gained wide recognition with the drawing activity book titled “Everyone can draw” published in 2012 (together with Zsófia Barabás), which was translated into several languages. She has also participated in residencies in Rome (Collegium Hungaricum) and Vienna (Alte Schmiede Kunstverein). She currently lives and works in Germany and in Budapest. Zsuzsa Moizer is mainly known for her aquarelles and oil paintings, but she also creates sculptures and installations. In her works she explores various themes of femininity (intimacy, sensuality, sexuality) and the cycle of life and death. Her career began with a series of self-portraits, and gradually her work became more and more saturated with content. In her work, she returns to self-portrayal, and in her series of self-portraits the stereotypical qualities associated with femininity (sacrifice, care, fertility) take form. In her subdued colour images, the search for identity, and the issue of gender roles unfold. In her oil paintings, the expressivity and intuitive character of aquarelles is combined with the honesty of self-portraits, where she also allows room for the formative role of random compositions. She usually depicts faces and bodies each with different painterly attention, creating a tension between the figurative and the abstract details, those that are shown and those that lie behind the surface. Her paintings, which allow a glimpse into the personal, intimate sphere of the artist, can be interpreted as inner landscapes, tracing the creases of the soul, the depths and heights of emotion. PV

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Szilárd CSEKE
Spirit of the forest

Szilárd CSEKE

Spirit of the forest

Year(s)
2019
Technique
oil, enamel on canvas
Size
201x161 cm
Artist's introduction

Szilárd Cseke is one of the well-known artists of the generation who entered the scene in the 1990s, becoming known at home and internationally for his decorative, bright forest paintings and kinetic installations. Emese Révész analysed his painterly vision as a typical attitude of the 2000s: 'Cseke's painterly attitude is also a generational creed, the basic idea of which is the rehabilitation of painterly beauty, the defiant embrace of "pleasure painting". Returning to the old role of the painter, he is an illusionist who creates experiences, and his painting is both an object of relaxation and meditation." Szilárd Cseke, born in Pápa, studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Pécs and then at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts during the regime change. He first constructed mobile works of art from plastic, car tyres and fans, then painted monochrome still-lifes and storyboard-like scenes with soft, ephemeral brushwork. He found his distinctive stylistic world in the early 2000s as a prominent representative of the new mainstream of digital image-based painting emerging at the turn of the millennium. His decorative period, which began in 2002, with its serene mood, analysed the romantic, symbolic duality of forest trees and sky in a post-digital optical experience. He broke down the photo-based landscape into layers and then built up the image space step by step, creating a varied facture. In places, he scraped back or sanded back the smeared, painted, dripped-dotted oil, acrylic, enamel and lacquer paint. The rich surfaces of different properties and craft pushed the conceptual boundaries of digital image-making and traditional fine art. As art historian Sándor Hornyik said: "From a distance, the painting as a whole gives the impression of a digialtised photograph, but up close, the complexity of the 'ground' is revealed; the green patches do not break down into pixels but are organised into subtle brushstrokes (...) What is exciting about the end result is that it is both painterly and hyper-modern. The generic subject becomes secondary, but the technical complexity works brilliantly." After the emblematic forest paintings, Cseke returned to compositions following life and then built kinetic, conceptual installations with motors – analysing social relations. His largest installation ensemble, Sustainable Identities, was presented at the Hungarian pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2015. Constantly experimenting with new techniques, around 2020, Cseke revisited forest paintings, reverting to nature, in bright visionary colours, in response to the urban lifestyle changed by the pandemic. Cseke lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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Szilárd CSEKE
The Ideal Forest

Szilárd CSEKE

The Ideal Forest

Year(s)
2009
Technique
oil and lacquer on canvas
Size
130x190 cm
Artist's introduction

Szilárd Cseke is one of the well-known artists of the generation who entered the scene in the 1990s, becoming known at home and internationally for his decorative, bright forest paintings and kinetic installations. Emese Révész analysed his painterly vision as a typical attitude of the 2000s: 'Cseke's painterly attitude is also a generational creed, the basic idea of which is the rehabilitation of painterly beauty, the defiant embrace of "pleasure painting". Returning to the old role of the painter, he is an illusionist who creates experiences, and his painting is both an object of relaxation and meditation." Szilárd Cseke, born in Pápa, studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Pécs and then at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts during the regime change. He first constructed mobile works of art from plastic, car tyres and fans, then painted monochrome still-lifes and storyboard-like scenes with soft, ephemeral brushwork. He found his distinctive stylistic world in the early 2000s as a prominent representative of the new mainstream of digital image-based painting emerging at the turn of the millennium. His decorative period, which began in 2002, with its serene mood, analysed the romantic, symbolic duality of forest trees and sky in a post-digital optical experience. He broke down the photo-based landscape into layers and then built up the image space step by step, creating a varied facture. In places, he scraped back or sanded back the smeared, painted, dripped-dotted oil, acrylic, enamel and lacquer paint. The rich surfaces of different properties and craft pushed the conceptual boundaries of digital image-making and traditional fine art. As art historian Sándor Hornyik said: "From a distance, the painting as a whole gives the impression of a digialtised photograph, but up close, the complexity of the 'ground' is revealed; the green patches do not break down into pixels but are organised into subtle brushstrokes (...) What is exciting about the end result is that it is both painterly and hyper-modern. The generic subject becomes secondary, but the technical complexity works brilliantly." After the emblematic forest paintings, Cseke returned to compositions following life and then built kinetic, conceptual installations with motors – analysing social relations. His largest installation ensemble, Sustainable Identities, was presented at the Hungarian pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2015. Constantly experimenting with new techniques, around 2020, Cseke revisited forest paintings, reverting to nature, in bright visionary colours, in response to the urban lifestyle changed by the pandemic. Cseke lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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0910-Cseke-Szilard-Az-idealis-erdo-II.jpg
Szilárd CSEKE
The Ideal Forest II.

Szilárd CSEKE

The Ideal Forest II.

Year(s)
2009
Technique
oil and lacquer on canvas
Size
130x190 cm
Artist's introduction

Szilárd Cseke is one of the well-known artists of the generation who entered the scene in the 1990s, becoming known at home and internationally for his decorative, bright forest paintings and kinetic installations. Emese Révész analysed his painterly vision as a typical attitude of the 2000s: 'Cseke's painterly attitude is also a generational creed, the basic idea of which is the rehabilitation of painterly beauty, the defiant embrace of "pleasure painting". Returning to the old role of the painter, he is an illusionist who creates experiences, and his painting is both an object of relaxation and meditation." Szilárd Cseke, born in Pápa, studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Pécs and then at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts during the regime change. He first constructed mobile works of art from plastic, car tyres and fans, then painted monochrome still-lifes and storyboard-like scenes with soft, ephemeral brushwork. He found his distinctive stylistic world in the early 2000s as a prominent representative of the new mainstream of digital image-based painting emerging at the turn of the millennium. His decorative period, which began in 2002, with its serene mood, analysed the romantic, symbolic duality of forest trees and sky in a post-digital optical experience. He broke down the photo-based landscape into layers and then built up the image space step by step, creating a varied facture. In places, he scraped back or sanded back the smeared, painted, dripped-dotted oil, acrylic, enamel and lacquer paint. The rich surfaces of different properties and craft pushed the conceptual boundaries of digital image-making and traditional fine art. As art historian Sándor Hornyik said: "From a distance, the painting as a whole gives the impression of a digialtised photograph, but up close, the complexity of the 'ground' is revealed; the green patches do not break down into pixels but are organised into subtle brushstrokes (...) What is exciting about the end result is that it is both painterly and hyper-modern. The generic subject becomes secondary, but the technical complexity works brilliantly." After the emblematic forest paintings, Cseke returned to compositions following life and then built kinetic, conceptual installations with motors – analysing social relations. His largest installation ensemble, Sustainable Identities, was presented at the Hungarian pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2015. Constantly experimenting with new techniques, around 2020, Cseke revisited forest paintings, reverting to nature, in bright visionary colours, in response to the urban lifestyle changed by the pandemic. Cseke lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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0367-Almasy-Aladar-Az-oda-szellemfurdojeben-ebredezo-Horatius.jpg
Aladár ALMÁSY
Horatius awakening in the mind-spa of the ode

Aladár ALMÁSY

Horatius awakening in the mind-spa of the ode

Year(s)
2017
Technique
watercolour and ink on paper
Size
56x76 cm
Artist's introduction

Aladár Almásy is one of the most distinctive figures of the generation of graphic artists of the 1970s, whose graphic universe is defined by mystical-psychological symbolism, romantic sensibility and linguistic humour. Noémi Szabó, art historian, described his distinctive character vividly: "He is invested in a romantic-surrealist eclecticism, constructing a dream world far from the current age, full of pretension, but at the same time honesty as well." Born in Debrecen, Almásy completed his graphic studies at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts in 1976. In the 1970s, together with Imre Szemethy, he was the successor of the generation of graphic artists that had defined the previous decade and had established an important tendency and which was marked by the names of Béla Kondor, Arnold Gross, Csaba Rékassy and Ádám Würtz. His first works were etchings, lithographs, aquatints, mezzotints, and pen and ink drawings. His aesthetic world was characterised by jagged, fragmented draughtsmanship, dreamlike, surreal visions and playful linguistic humour. His numerous national solo exhibitions were accompanied by several international exhibitions. In his scandalous statement of 1978, he described himself as an individualistic dreamer: "My existence is a unique visual world of forms, determined by inner emotions, a pure inexhaustible world view, never committed to any fix direction." He gradually drifted towards painting in the 1980s, combining cloud-like patches of colour with his broken line work. His art, which looked to the past, evoked the poetic mood of turn-of-the-century symbolism, from the metaphorical enigma of Baudelaire to the nostalgic dreamscapes of Lajos Gulácsy. The heroes of his poetic narratives are often drawn from cultural history (István Széchenyi, Martin Luther, Zarathustra, etc.). Around the turn of the millennium, the medium of bronze sculpture also appeared in his œuvre, which embraces a wide range of techniques. His successful start to his career was accompanied by numerous state awards in the 1970s and 1980s. He lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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Szilárd CSEKE
Inhaling autumn

Szilárd CSEKE

Inhaling autumn

Year(s)
2019
Technique
oil, enamel on canvas
Size
130x200 cm
Artist's introduction

Szilárd Cseke is one of the well-known artists of the generation who entered the scene in the 1990s, becoming known at home and internationally for his decorative, bright forest paintings and kinetic installations. Emese Révész analysed his painterly vision as a typical attitude of the 2000s: 'Cseke's painterly attitude is also a generational creed, the basic idea of which is the rehabilitation of painterly beauty, the defiant embrace of "pleasure painting". Returning to the old role of the painter, he is an illusionist who creates experiences, and his painting is both an object of relaxation and meditation." Szilárd Cseke, born in Pápa, studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Pécs and then at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts during the regime change. He first constructed mobile works of art from plastic, car tyres and fans, then painted monochrome still-lifes and storyboard-like scenes with soft, ephemeral brushwork. He found his distinctive stylistic world in the early 2000s as a prominent representative of the new mainstream of digital image-based painting emerging at the turn of the millennium. His decorative period, which began in 2002, with its serene mood, analysed the romantic, symbolic duality of forest trees and sky in a post-digital optical experience. He broke down the photo-based landscape into layers and then built up the image space step by step, creating a varied facture. In places, he scraped back or sanded back the smeared, painted, dripped-dotted oil, acrylic, enamel and lacquer paint. The rich surfaces of different properties and craft pushed the conceptual boundaries of digital image-making and traditional fine art. As art historian Sándor Hornyik said: "From a distance, the painting as a whole gives the impression of a digialtised photograph, but up close, the complexity of the 'ground' is revealed; the green patches do not break down into pixels but are organised into subtle brushstrokes (...) What is exciting about the end result is that it is both painterly and hyper-modern. The generic subject becomes secondary, but the technical complexity works brilliantly." After the emblematic forest paintings, Cseke returned to compositions following life and then built kinetic, conceptual installations with motors – analysing social relations. His largest installation ensemble, Sustainable Identities, was presented at the Hungarian pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2015. Constantly experimenting with new techniques, around 2020, Cseke revisited forest paintings, reverting to nature, in bright visionary colours, in response to the urban lifestyle changed by the pandemic. Cseke lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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1419 Fridvalszki M†rk - Back & Forth
Márk FRIDVALSZKI
Back & Forth

Márk FRIDVALSZKI

Back & Forth

Year(s)
2022
Technique
gouache on canvas
Size
70x70 cm
Artist's introduction

Márk Fridvalszki, who has been living and working in Berlin for more than ten years, started his studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 2004, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 2011 and later attended the Intermedia Department in Leipzig as a postgraduate student. His works from the mid-2010s, which the artist called "stark geometry", expressed a dark paranoia of the "techno-end" dominated by his interest in monochromatism, entropy and technology. He is a co-founder of the art collective and publishing project called Technologie und das Unheimliche (T+U) operating since 2014. His works can be found in the collections of the Ferenczy Museum, the Hungarian National Gallery and the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. In 2018, a decisive shift occurred in his art: Márk Fridvalszki attempted to break away with a "forward and upward" momentum from the framework of a neoliberal system without a future or criticism. His inspirational creative method builds up from the pastel and/or neon, cultural turning points and subcultural products of late popular modernism characterising Fischer, that pulsates in psychedelic colours and is collage-like in its inspiration – in his work titled Still Hight, he evokes Ilona Keserü's iconic, cosmic world of forms and the skin colour that became the trademark of his predecessor, emphasising the counterpoint of the image. According to Barnabás Zemlényi-Kovács, it is “»archeo-futurology«, a consistent exploration of the sonic and visual remnants of lost futures, modernist visions in a post-future, timeless age.” The works included in the collection are already all artifacts of a utopian “vision of the future”, seen in a universal and ontological perspective, excavations of nostalgia for the future, which, according to the artist, are intended to act as a catalyst to awaken avant-garde energies from their slumber. Annamária Szabó

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1391 Kis RĘka Csaba - Bad And Naughty
Róka Csaba KIS
Bad And Naughty

Róka Csaba KIS

Bad And Naughty

Year(s)
2021
Technique
oil, enamel, canvas
Size
100×99,5 cm
Artist's introduction

As a leading painter of Hungarian posthuman hybridity, he has been a regular participant in solo and group exhibitions for two decades, both on the local and the international scene. These include the Liverpool Biennial in 2010, a group exhibition at the Factory-Art Gallery in Berlin in 2011, then due to its impact, being added to the collection of the private MACT/CACT Museum and Center of Contemporary Art in Switzerland, and after 2011, one more Esterházy Art Award nomination in 2023. For the fourth time in his career, the central problem of his painting, the representation of the human figure, is ricocheted. While the few years following his graduation in 2007 were essentially characterised by the dynamic, dramatic contrasts of classical painting traditions such as Baroque and Romanticism, with a satirical overtone, in a naturalistic, horroristic narrative composition of colour and form, from the mid-2010s – having completely stripped of the realist approach – the influence of surrealism unfolded in the contrasting laboratory of “quite absurd, almost caricaturistically pathological subject matter”, as Gábor Rieder wrote on the artist’s exhibition titled Federation Of Decomposed Organs And Stripes. However, the distorted fragmentation of the human figure in his paintings reached its peak after 2020, as the human body parts became completely separated from their self-referentiality. The works from the same series, shown in the collection, are now abstract, deconstructed painting elements floating in the space of the picture, like the filtered presence of a cartoon character on another reality. The associative black and white stripe stamp, which is at once zebra carpet, hard-edge veneer constructions and the discount barcode of capitalist society, is applied to a predominantly colour-transitioned base layer, reminiscent of the typical colour palette of American car tuning. As a final layer of paintings, Kis Róka painted the deformed creatures, often distorted pop-cultural references, with the "melted gummy bear" effect of water-based enamel paint (Bad And Naughty, 2021). In the spring of 2023, however, the artist completely erased his hardware and dissolved the image space of his works in the pixel art bitmap matrix of trash aesthetics, making the distorted fragmentary creatures take full shape as stick figures again. Annamária Szabó

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Tamás KONOK
Balancement

Tamás KONOK

Balancement

Year(s)
1977
Technique
acrylic on canvas
Size
89x116 cm
Artist's introduction

Tamás Konok studied painting at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts between 1948 and 1953 as a student of Aurél Bernáth. He emigrated to Paris in 1959. He turned away from naturalistic painting and developed his lyrical geometric style from the 1970s, in which sensitive linear drawing plays a critical role. Galerie Lambert organised his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1960. From the 1970s, Konok and his wife, the sculptor Katalin Hetey lived in Paris and Zurich. Konok worked in close contact with Schlégl Gallery in Zurich and regularly exhibited in French, Swiss, Dutch and Swedish galleries and museums. He returned to Hungary with a solo exhibition in 1980. Since the 1990s, he has been staying and working in Budapest on a regular basis. His work attempted to capture transcendental, timeless realms of meaning: he sought to depict the forces, energies, and relations that drive the universe with his concrete, geometric shapes and linear systems. His musical studies had a profound influence on his art; thus, in his work, he paid attention to the perfect articulation of sound, rhythm, and line navigation. In addition to his "Apollonian" notion of art, which shaped his precise compositions and architectonic pictorial structures, he was also committed to renewing his painting practice during his seven-decade career. The central element of his painterly experiments – based on small-scale collages – could be grasped in the forever evolving pictorial structures, motifs and the dynamic changes in the artist's palette. Krisztina Szipőcs

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Róbert CSÁKI
Lake Balaton

Róbert CSÁKI

Lake Balaton

Year(s)
2007
Technique
oil on wooden board
Size
19x23,5 cm
Artist's introduction

Róbert Csáki has been present in the Hungarian painting scene since the 1990s with his sinister, dreamlike visions. His world, which continues the tradition of panel painting, is defined by the bizarre dichotomy of surrealism and rococo. "His figures" – as the art writer Tihamér Novotny explained – "are weightless, floating, almost levitating in the vapour of memory: the real dissolves in the fog of imagination, in the atmosphere of vision." Born in Budapest, Csáki graduated as a painter from the Hungarian College of Arts during the regime change. His earliest works already bore the influence of 18th-century art. During a study trip to the Netherlands in 1996, he discovered the bizarre, grotesque, frightening bestiary that had influenced his later artistic performance to a greater extent. From the very beginning of his career, Csáki has been known for creating a painterly world that is difficult to categorise but easily recognisable, with an intense atmosphere. His style is characterised by a classical sensibility, pastose brushwork and virtuoso blurring. The inhabitants of his surreal, dreamlike, decaying artistic universe are not only grotesque puppets but also various animal-headed monsters, rococo figures lost in the mist, but also coastal landscapes or even still lifes, evoked through his virtuoso painterly style. And in his Hommage series, he has reinterpreted classics from art history, from Monet's water lilies to Velázquez's portrait of the Pope. He has held solo exhibitions in numerous venues in the provinces and the capital throughout a consistent career spanning several decades. He lives and works in Budapest.

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Péter SOMODY
Dim

Péter SOMODY

Dim

Year(s)
2017
Technique
acrylic on canvas
Size
70x50 cm
Artist's introduction

Péter Somody is an artist living and working in Pécs. He was Ilona Keserü's student at the Drawing Department of the Janus Pannonius University of Pécs. He studied at the Master School of the University of Pécs and absolved his DLA (Doctor of Liberal Arts) studies in painting at the same institution. His masters were Ilona Keserü and Gyula Konkoly. Between 1997–98, he was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. In 1999, he was selected to participate in the exhibition titled "Junge Kunst" at the Haus der Kunst in Munich. During this period, he showed his work in several group exhibitions in Munich and other locations in Bavaria. He is currently a professor at the Faculty of Arts' Department of Painting, University of Pécs, and the head of the institution's Doctoral School. His works are regularly shown in national and international exhibitions in Munich, Nuremberg and Stuttgart. In 2000, he was awarded the Strabag Artaward. In 2015, he received the Munkácsy Prize for his work. Péter Somody is one of the prominent representatives of contemporary abstract painting. He started developing his distinctive style already in his early period. Transparent stain painting is at the core of his artistic practice until the 2010s. He strives to express lyrical sensuality by relying on a reduced set of tools. The translucent, loosely applied patches of colour occasionally overlap; in other cases, they become independent, cloud-like fields of colour enveloping the pictorial space. These open fields of colour become quasi-spaces, into which infinite geometric garlands and serial forms are introduced, based on the principle of the "Open Work". The collision of sharp and blurred elements gives the surfaces a unique objectivity. The viewer is invited to observe the interplay of visual elements on the surface and the meditative silence that emanates from them.

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Attila KONDOR
Baptisterium

Attila KONDOR

Baptisterium

Year(s)
2008
Technique
oil on canvas
Size
200x150 cm
Artist's introduction

Attila Kondor represents a figurative derivation of oil painting that emerged after the turn of the millennium, drawing on the Italian tradition and striking a metaphysical note. He also created animations based on his meditative paintings, which use elements of classical architecture and garden design. "The images of the contemplative, conceptual animations are created on canvas and prints, where the presence of stillness and silence is conveyed not only by harmonious proportions and tonal transitions of soothing colours but also by the apparition-like glow of the highlights that almost split the painting plane, suggesting a supernatural light" - wrote art historian János Schneller about the artist's meditative approach. Kondor, born in Budapest, graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2000 with a degree in Graphic Arts. At that time, his artistic perspective was characterised by the traditional oil painting method and a search for classical themes. During his time at the university, he turned against the conceptual practice that dominated the intellectual climate of the 1990s and, as a rebellious gesture, painted plein air landscapes of the Élesd countryside in Transylvania as a member of the Sensaria Group, a group of traditionalist painting students. Although the group's attitude towards classical painting resonated among the realist tendencies that were gaining ground in the early 2000s, Kondor was isolated from the group because of his essentially philosophical, contemplative character. He was strongly influenced by Italy, the home of classical architecture and traditional garden design. His early paintings depicted unpopulated, meditative Italian castle gardens with reflecting surfaces of water, silent colonnades and classical sculptures. Subsequently, his canvases depicted architectural fragments from Budapest. Smudges and tactile surfaces accompanied his pictorial character's realistic, austere perspective. By the end of the decade, he found his own distinctive, individual iconography: gateways, staircases, marble halls and libraries, lifted from classical architecture and given symbolic power. Kondor's historical and philosophical worldview suggests that the proportions of the gates, windows and spaces correspond to the "majesty of the cosmos". The pictorial voids, highlighted by graphic white stripes or negative forms, indicate the proximity of mystery in this Arcadian, introspective world. Since 2013, Kondor has also been making meditative animated films from the "raw material" of his paintings, besides the oil paintings that he is constantly creating. He lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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István NÁDLER
It might seem... No 2.

István NÁDLER

It might seem... No 2.

Year(s)
2008
Technique
casein tempera on canvas
Size
200x150 cm
Artist's introduction

István Nádler was born in 1938 in Visegrád. Between 1958 and 1963 he studied at the College of Fine Arts in Budapest, where his master was Gyula Hincz. He became a member of the Zugló Circle, where he was exploring the newest international tendencies with his progressive contemporaries, in Sándor Molnár’s flat. In 1968 and 1969 he participated in the Iparterv exhibitions. At the end of the 1960s, Nádler’s attention shifted to hard-edge and minimal art. However, in contrast to Imre Bak, his structural, geometric painting was based only for a short time on the schematic systems of various archaic cultures and folk motifs. His works of a solid foundation of homogeneous colour-fields, dynamic visual structures and “impersonal” structures created in the 1970s can be characterised by strident colour-connections. His pictures presented systems where each element had its specific movement abilities, movement characteristics. In the 1980s, he unexpectedly returned to his gestural painting of the 1960s. Spontaneous visual improvisation, randomness and momentariness describe his paintings as their main characteristic features. For him, the artwork became a radiant energy centre, which does not document a pre-planned theoretical-logical process but rather conveys a state of being. Gábor Kaszás

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Dezső KORNISS
 Friends

Dezső KORNISS

 Friends

Year(s)
1949
Technique
oil on paper 
Size
21x24,5 cm
Artist's introduction

Dezső Korniss was one of the most important representatives of modern Hungarian painting in the mid-20th century, and co-creator of the legendary “Szentendre Programme”. Throughout most of his career, he has been a banned-and-tolerated artist, who created a body of work that draws on the roots of surrealism and constructivism, with an individual voice and an experimental spirit. According to his monographer Lóránd Hegyi, his synthesizing art represented “the universality of the Latin-Mediterranean-French painterly language, but also its local roots”. Korniss was born in Beszterce, Transylvania in 1908, but grew up in Budapest. As a young man, he attended the open academy of Artur Podolini-Volkmann and then moved to the Netherlands, where he was introduced to the constructivist aesthetic world of the De Stijl group as a high school student. Because of his avant-garde conception, he was not allowed to finish the Academy of Fine Arts in Pest, together with the “progressive young people”. In his early years, he sought contact with art circles of modern spirit in Hungary and in Western Europe. In the 1930s he collected archaic architectural motifs in Szentendre and Szigetmonostor, in Bartók’s footsteps. Together with his friend, Lajos Vajda, he formulated the “Szentendre programme”, which later became famous for combining folk tradition and modernity. He called his style with its vivid, homogeneous splashes of colour, which rewrites traditional motifs into schematised geometric forms, “constructive surrealism”. Although much of his early work was destroyed during the siege, he continued his experiments with renewed vigour after 1945. He joined the short-lived European School, which represented Western modernism in Hungary. He painted surrealist compositions abstracted from archaic masks, bugs and folk ornamentation, he created experimental monotypes, he participated in exhibitions and held a teaching post. After a few optimistic years, the political turn of 1948 made life impossible for Korniss and his intellectual circle. Stigmatised as a “formalist” in the 1950s, the marginalised artist was not allowed to exhibit, but he did not stop creating. His non-figurative works from around 1960, made without a brush, by dribbling lacquer paint, are the best Hungarian analogies of American Abstract Expressionism. In these “written calligraphies”, as Hegyi wrote, the “visual organisation into a system transforms the elementary stains and dribbled lines into rows, into the rhythm of small units”. Young people of the sixties, the progressive creators of the Iparterv generation, discovered Korniss as their role model and master. His geometric design, built of homogeneous patches of colour, was seen as the forerunner of contemporary minimalism and hard-edge. Although Korniss found it difficult to step out of the category of being a banned artist, towards the end of his life he became a cultic figure, a modern master. In his later art he returned to the folk motifs of the Szentendre programme, and then experimented with reduced geometric compositions inspired by minimalism (or suprematism). In 1984 he passed away as a great master of Szentendre art. Gábor Reider

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Dezső KORNISS
 Barbarian Venus

Dezső KORNISS

 Barbarian Venus

Year(s)
1947
Technique
 oil on canvas
Size
68x13 cm
Artist's introduction

Dezső Korniss was one of the most important representatives of modern Hungarian painting in the mid-20th century, and co-creator of the legendary “Szentendre Programme”. Throughout most of his career, he has been a banned-and-tolerated artist, who created a body of work that draws on the roots of surrealism and constructivism, with an individual voice and an experimental spirit. According to his monographer Lóránd Hegyi, his synthesizing art represented “the universality of the Latin-Mediterranean-French painterly language, but also its local roots”. Korniss was born in Beszterce, Transylvania in 1908, but grew up in Budapest. As a young man, he attended the open academy of Artur Podolini-Volkmann and then moved to the Netherlands, where he was introduced to the constructivist aesthetic world of the De Stijl group as a high school student. Because of his avant-garde conception, he was not allowed to finish the Academy of Fine Arts in Pest, together with the “progressive young people”. In his early years, he sought contact with art circles of modern spirit in Hungary and in Western Europe. In the 1930s he collected archaic architectural motifs in Szentendre and Szigetmonostor, in Bartók’s footsteps. Together with his friend, Lajos Vajda, he formulated the “Szentendre programme”, which later became famous for combining folk tradition and modernity. He called his style with its vivid, homogeneous splashes of colour, which rewrites traditional motifs into schematised geometric forms, “constructive surrealism”. Although much of his early work was destroyed during the siege, he continued his experiments with renewed vigour after 1945. He joined the short-lived European School, which represented Western modernism in Hungary. He painted surrealist compositions abstracted from archaic masks, bugs and folk ornamentation, he created experimental monotypes, he participated in exhibitions and held a teaching post. After a few optimistic years, the political turn of 1948 made life impossible for Korniss and his intellectual circle. Stigmatised as a “formalist” in the 1950s, the marginalised artist was not allowed to exhibit, but he did not stop creating. His non-figurative works from around 1960, made without a brush, by dribbling lacquer paint, are the best Hungarian analogies of American Abstract Expressionism. In these “written calligraphies”, as Hegyi wrote, the “visual organisation into a system transforms the elementary stains and dribbled lines into rows, into the rhythm of small units”. Young people of the sixties, the progressive creators of the Iparterv generation, discovered Korniss as their role model and master. His geometric design, built of homogeneous patches of colour, was seen as the forerunner of contemporary minimalism and hard-edge. Although Korniss found it difficult to step out of the category of being a banned artist, towards the end of his life he became a cultic figure, a modern master. In his later art he returned to the folk motifs of the Szentendre programme, and then experimented with reduced geometric compositions inspired by minimalism (or suprematism). In 1984 he passed away as a great master of Szentendre art. Gábor Reider

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Imre BAK
Anywhere

Imre BAK

Anywhere

Year(s)
2013
Technique
acrylic on canvas
Size
80x120 cm
Artist's introduction

Imre Bak established the specific character of his paintings in the mid-1960s, referencing the lessons of Geometric Abstraction to this day. Along with some of his contemporaries, Bak defied the geopolitics of the era and the existential and further difficulties arising from the existing social order to connect with the global art of the time. During the Iparterv exhibitions (1968–1969), Bak had already formulated the idea of combining the American tendencies of Hard-edge painting and Minimalism with motifs inspired by Hungarian folk art and the traditions of the local avant-garde. This structuralist programme – which consciously examined the nature of signs and symbols – defined his paintings from the 1970s. In the 1980s, the geometric system of Bak's paintings became increasingly complex, leading to the postmodern turn in the artist's work. During the 1990s, Bak's motifs shifted towards "simplification" again, as expanded surfaces of colour started to define his architecture-inspired paintings. In this period, Bak used perspective and a set of geometric elements to construct his landscapes, where the predominant motifs were "structures" consisting of architectural elements. In his latest work conceived after the 2000s, Bak returns to Geometric Abstraction's fundamental question of how spatial illusion is elicited through two-dimensional means. His compositions that combine rectangular fields of colour with dichromatic, meanderlike lines are based on the utilisation of pure, intense colours, which create the illusion of depth on the canvas. Áron Fenyvesi

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Krisztián FREY
Brown-Black Calligraphy

Krisztián FREY

Brown-Black Calligraphy

Year(s)
circa 1990
Technique
oil and mixed media on paper
Size
50x70 cm
Artist's introduction

Krisztián Frey, as one of the most original figures of the Hungarian non-figurative painting –reborn in the 1960s – formed his own specific way of expression on the domestic scene protected from international influence and suffering from intellectual drowning. As one of the Hungarian representatives of the European post-war abstraction, Frey created his own individual way of expression, combining the lyrical approach of the art informel and the gestural technique of handwriting, similarly to Cy Twombly or Georges Mathieu. Frey started to build his career in the mid-1950s. As a dentist’s son from the countryside, he had to face being stigmatised as a “class enemy”, due to which he was not allowed to attend the College of Fine Arts. As a consequence, neither the ideology of Socialist Realism, nor the conservative tools of scenery painting could prevent him to deploy his aesthetic inner world. He got into close contact with the Zugló Circle, a group of young progressive artists, where his contemporaries were discovering the ways of French abstraction. He staged his first individual exhibition in Hungary in 1967 (in a secluded culture house of Rákosliget), where he presented Rákosliget Pictures, his series consisting of repainted, “whitened” gestures, leaning towards monochrome painting. In the mid-1960s – independently from the Rákosliget series – his individual style became mature: unique abstract expressionism, inspired by Eastern calligraphy and letter-like script writing. He used to refer to his own artistic approach as “gesture painting with varying pace”, which can be described as grey surfaces consisting of multi-layer colours, wide, energetic, expressive brush strokes, handwritten-like, multilingual captures, stenciled letters, vandal wall scripts, zodiac signs, and applicated photographs. Its characteristics were not featured by the elegance of the Western calligraphic abstraction, but much more by the “toilet-door-aesthetics” of art brut and arte povera, utilizing cheap laths, rough scratches and raw gestures. They have been inseparably accompanied by raw erotic desire and invincible writing force. After participating in the Iparterv exhibitions, Frey emigrated to Switzerland in 1970 and lived in Zürich until the end of the Hungarian communism. From the late 1970s, for almost two decades, he was engaged with mathematics, music and informatics. His experiments of experimental computer-drawing ensured a spot for him among the pioneers of international computer art. After the Regime Change in Hungary, he visited his home country again, and parallelly he began to re-develop his earlier scriptural painting. His home crowd then started to admire his unrivalled oeuvre, which is pervaded by the permanent writing force, free expression and the calling of experimentation. Gábor Rieder

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Anikó ROBITZ
Bauhaus, Porto

Anikó ROBITZ

Bauhaus, Porto

Year(s)
2016
Technique
acrylic print, plexiglass
Size
75x50x3 cm
Edition
10/3
Artist's introduction

She is one of the most prominent and internationally renowned representatives of the Hungarian photographic generation that started in the mid-2000s. Her works, which fall under the category of fine art photography, reduce the salient details of the architectural sight to modern abstract forms. According to art historian Rita Somosi, her visual world is defined by the parallel presence of reality and abstraction: “She builds from strict geometric forms, but the role of constructing is taken over by the mapping of real locations, through which the visual abstraction of the world around us becomes visible." Born in Nagykanizsa, Anikó Robitz studied analogue photography and laboratory work at the Camera Anima Open Academy (Szellemkép Szabadiskola) in the mid-2000s. She started on the path of analogue artistic photography with an old camera, then moved to digital techniques and found her main subject: architecture. In her travels, she seeks iconic or distinctive sights of 20th century modern and contemporary architecture. She captures particular details of the architecture, angles reduced to geometric patterns. Without any post-processing, the final composition is created by snapping the picture, where corners, plaster textures, cast shadows, wires, wall paintings and joints appear in a geometric language similar to that of Suprematism or Minimalism. The reduced, often black-and-white colours are the result of the original locations and the realistic view of the selected details. The specific buildings are unidentifiable, the titles of the photographs only indicate the city (from Strasbourg to Zurich, from Colombo to Angyalföld). In addition to modernist abstract tableau painting, the visual language of Robitz was influenced by the photographic legacy of the Bauhaus, such as László Moholy-Nagy and the 20th century master of building photography Lucien Hervé. In the late 2010s, her subject matter expanded to include reflective surfaces, family photographs and nature drawings. Robitz is the winner of several national and international photography awards and since 2007 she has regularly exhibited abroad and participated in prestigious photography fairs. She travels a lot for work, but lives in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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0741-Karolyi-Zsigmond-Becs-XVII.-Bp.jpg
Zsigmond KÁROLYI
Vienna (XVII.) - Budapest

Zsigmond KÁROLYI

Vienna (XVII.) - Budapest

Year(s)
1993 (1996)
Technique
oil on canvas
Size
120x120 cm
Artist's introduction

Zsigmond Károlyi, after his figurative experiments of the 2000s – which manifested in archaizing, quasi-symbolic genre images, still lifes arranged from children's toys, sour pastiche pieces – once again started painting geometric images, returning to his concept from around 1977-78, which was based on the relationship of elementary forms and motion relations. His works recorded the triangle's and the rectangle's phases of rotation; his series of paintings is thus a synthesis of decades of artistic practice. The platform and the arguments of this pictorial summary are based on a kind of orthodoxy, on the fundamentalism of painting theory. At the same time, this becomes a stylistic framework, a characteristic form in itself. The visual structures created by rotation, the virtual shifting of planes, the division of the image surface and the transformation of this rhythm by adding new sections - sometimes planar fractals – provide a complex set of terms. Károlyi uses pure primary colours of additive and subtractive colour mixing in these procedures, complemented with the broken "mutants" of these colours. The almost exclusively square-format, balanced quality of the boards is juxtaposed with peculiar, immanent seriality, a gesture that generates form, folding out and across, folding in and down, mirroring. These processes vary and permute the planes intended and assumed to be regular, which are ultimately strikingly personal. The square is halved, the triangle is reflected. A circle or a sector appears only rarely. The forms are aligned in the austere tension of cold and warm, converging and receding hues and the delicate balance of complementary colours, while the images reveal something seemingly stricter, at the same time self-ironic, from a distance, but perhaps not involuntarily, indeed: a reference to Bauhaus, a quasi-pedagogical "dogmatism". István Hajdu

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0750-Pinter-Dia-Belepes-egy-tiszta-teruletre.jpg
Dia PINTÉR
Entering Into A Clear Area

Dia PINTÉR

Entering Into A Clear Area

Year(s)
2019
Technique
serpentine streamer, felt-tip pen, acrylic spray paint and ballpoint pen on canvas
Size
200x150 cm
Artist's introduction

Inerasable memory is a crucial notion in the case of Dia Pintér's work. Shards of memory, image fragments and segments of space appear in her images. These cannot be depicted or decoded directly. Painting is, of course, always a zone where depiction takes place – here, however, it is not a mathematical process but rather a multidimensional one. The evocative nature of the utilised motifs, the emotive power of colours, the unity of forms, the elaboration of complex spatial constellations, and the connections stemming from associative patterns between words and work processes play a central role in her work. The primary formal unit of representation in Pintér's case is the stripe or the paper band. These stripes fall in a rain-like fashion, delineating shapes or gathering in puddles mirroring various motifs. Pintér searches for transition zones leading to past-tense perceptions. She is not looking for one given method or a magic spell through which this transition might occur: she seems to be seeking the direction with closed eyes. As such, there is no method in how she constructs her artworks. In a world where everything seems to lend itself to verbalisation and interpretation, the painter escapes forwards, exiting this foreseeable and calculable realm. She does not surrender to emotional painting: her work cannot be interpreted as lyrical. The viewer follows the painter's pictorial steps, looking for reference points and larger structures, discarding these soon. It is almost as if she could establish a state of levitation and grasp the gaze in this inner space. A space that does not seem homely and from which all memories escape. The viewers look back into the past through this space; their nostalgia is awakened only to disintegrate. József Mélyi

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Attila KONDOR
Inner Library

Attila KONDOR

Inner Library

Year(s)
2021
Technique
oil on canvas
Size
100x100 cm
Artist's introduction

Attila Kondor represents a figurative derivation of oil painting that emerged after the turn of the millennium, drawing on the Italian tradition and striking a metaphysical note. He also created animations based on his meditative paintings, which use elements of classical architecture and garden design. "The images of the contemplative, conceptual animations are created on canvas and prints, where the presence of stillness and silence is conveyed not only by harmonious proportions and tonal transitions of soothing colours but also by the apparition-like glow of the highlights that almost split the painting plane, suggesting a supernatural light" - wrote art historian János Schneller about the artist's meditative approach. Kondor, born in Budapest, graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2000 with a degree in Graphic Arts. At that time, his artistic perspective was characterised by the traditional oil painting method and a search for classical themes. During his time at the university, he turned against the conceptual practice that dominated the intellectual climate of the 1990s and, as a rebellious gesture, painted plein air landscapes of the Élesd countryside in Transylvania as a member of the Sensaria Group, a group of traditionalist painting students. Although the group's attitude towards classical painting resonated among the realist tendencies that were gaining ground in the early 2000s, Kondor was isolated from the group because of his essentially philosophical, contemplative character. He was strongly influenced by Italy, the home of classical architecture and traditional garden design. His early paintings depicted unpopulated, meditative Italian castle gardens with reflecting surfaces of water, silent colonnades and classical sculptures. Subsequently, his canvases depicted architectural fragments from Budapest. Smudges and tactile surfaces accompanied his pictorial character's realistic, austere perspective. By the end of the decade, he found his own distinctive, individual iconography: gateways, staircases, marble halls and libraries, lifted from classical architecture and given symbolic power. Kondor's historical and philosophical worldview suggests that the proportions of the gates, windows and spaces correspond to the "majesty of the cosmos". The pictorial voids, highlighted by graphic white stripes or negative forms, indicate the proximity of mystery in this Arcadian, introspective world. Since 2013, Kondor has also been making meditative animated films from the "raw material" of his paintings, besides the oil paintings that he is constantly creating. He lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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0967-Kondor-Attila-Belso-konyvtar-II.jpg
Attila KONDOR
Inner Library II.

Attila KONDOR

Inner Library II.

Year(s)
2021
Technique
oil on canvas
Size
90x110 cm
Artist's introduction

Attila Kondor represents a figurative derivation of oil painting that emerged after the turn of the millennium, drawing on the Italian tradition and striking a metaphysical note. He also created animations based on his meditative paintings, which use elements of classical architecture and garden design. "The images of the contemplative, conceptual animations are created on canvas and prints, where the presence of stillness and silence is conveyed not only by harmonious proportions and tonal transitions of soothing colours but also by the apparition-like glow of the highlights that almost split the painting plane, suggesting a supernatural light" - wrote art historian János Schneller about the artist's meditative approach. Kondor, born in Budapest, graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2000 with a degree in Graphic Arts. At that time, his artistic perspective was characterised by the traditional oil painting method and a search for classical themes. During his time at the university, he turned against the conceptual practice that dominated the intellectual climate of the 1990s and, as a rebellious gesture, painted plein air landscapes of the Élesd countryside in Transylvania as a member of the Sensaria Group, a group of traditionalist painting students. Although the group's attitude towards classical painting resonated among the realist tendencies that were gaining ground in the early 2000s, Kondor was isolated from the group because of his essentially philosophical, contemplative character. He was strongly influenced by Italy, the home of classical architecture and traditional garden design. His early paintings depicted unpopulated, meditative Italian castle gardens with reflecting surfaces of water, silent colonnades and classical sculptures. Subsequently, his canvases depicted architectural fragments from Budapest. Smudges and tactile surfaces accompanied his pictorial character's realistic, austere perspective. By the end of the decade, he found his own distinctive, individual iconography: gateways, staircases, marble halls and libraries, lifted from classical architecture and given symbolic power. Kondor's historical and philosophical worldview suggests that the proportions of the gates, windows and spaces correspond to the "majesty of the cosmos". The pictorial voids, highlighted by graphic white stripes or negative forms, indicate the proximity of mystery in this Arcadian, introspective world. Since 2013, Kondor has also been making meditative animated films from the "raw material" of his paintings, besides the oil paintings that he is constantly creating. He lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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Dávid SZENTGRÓTI
Imprinting

Dávid SZENTGRÓTI

Imprinting

Year(s)
2021
Technique
acrylic and pigment on canvas
Size
197x155 cm
Artist's introduction

Dávid Szentgróti is one of the most outstanding abstract gestural painters of the generation that emerged following the turn of the millennium, who cherishes the decades-old tradition of colourism and non-figurativity typical of Pécs. According to art historian György Várkonyi, "Dávid Szentgróti's paintings meet the timeless criteria of the 'easel painting' in every respect. These paintings are about painting itself: about the first movement and decision (...), about the poetic possibilities of the "application" of paint, the mixing/blending of colours relying on a variety of technical solutions, and the unfolding poetic possibilities." Szentgróti, born in Zalaegerszeg, graduated in painting from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pécs in 2006 and obtained his doctoral degree (DLA) in 2013. Since the 2000s, his œuvre has been enriched by the non-figurative painting tradition of Pécs, from the surrealist forms of Ferenc Martyn to the colourism of Ilona Keserü, to the compositional logic of Ernő Tolvaly. Vivid colours, expressive brushwork and figurative motifs between these gestures defined Szentgróti's works from the 2000s. In the 2010s, as he simplified his motifs, the abstract gesture applied with a broad brush became increasingly dominant. Towards the end of the decade, Szentgróti's non-figurative imagery – with its varied surface treatment – became increasingly dense. In contrast, the alternation of broad brushstrokes and expressive surfaces was replaced by fields of acrylic paint mixed with pigments, transforming the canvases into an increasingly bright and translucent direction. The paintings, built up from thin coats of paint, evoke the aesthetics and layering of digital image editing software. Although the seemingly spontaneous gestures evoke the instinctive image-making of Informel Painting, Szentgróti follows a carefully pre-determined artistic program. In the words of art historian János Schneller: "The superimposition of the paint layers on the surface of the canvas, i.e. the consciously evoked structures, is perhaps the most important aspect of the concept." This artistic process, which questions the ontology of painting, cultivates and rewrites tradition simultaneously. Present on the local and national scene, Szentgróti is a teacher at the Secondary School of Art in Pécs. He lives and works in Pécs.

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Dávid SZENTGRÓTI
Imprinting 01

Dávid SZENTGRÓTI

Imprinting 01

Year(s)
2021
Technique
acrylic and pigment on canvas
Size
190x150 cm
Artist's introduction

Dávid Szentgróti is one of the most outstanding abstract gestural painters of the generation that emerged following the turn of the millennium, who cherishes the decades-old tradition of colourism and non-figurativity typical of Pécs. According to art historian György Várkonyi, "Dávid Szentgróti's paintings meet the timeless criteria of the 'easel painting' in every respect. These paintings are about painting itself: about the first movement and decision (...), about the poetic possibilities of the "application" of paint, the mixing/blending of colours relying on a variety of technical solutions, and the unfolding poetic possibilities." Szentgróti, born in Zalaegerszeg, graduated in painting from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pécs in 2006 and obtained his doctoral degree (DLA) in 2013. Since the 2000s, his œuvre has been enriched by the non-figurative painting tradition of Pécs, from the surrealist forms of Ferenc Martyn to the colourism of Ilona Keserü, to the compositional logic of Ernő Tolvaly. Vivid colours, expressive brushwork and figurative motifs between these gestures defined Szentgróti's works from the 2000s. In the 2010s, as he simplified his motifs, the abstract gesture applied with a broad brush became increasingly dominant. Towards the end of the decade, Szentgróti's non-figurative imagery – with its varied surface treatment – became increasingly dense. In contrast, the alternation of broad brushstrokes and expressive surfaces was replaced by fields of acrylic paint mixed with pigments, transforming the canvases into an increasingly bright and translucent direction. The paintings, built up from thin coats of paint, evoke the aesthetics and layering of digital image editing software. Although the seemingly spontaneous gestures evoke the instinctive image-making of Informel Painting, Szentgróti follows a carefully pre-determined artistic program. In the words of art historian János Schneller: "The superimposition of the paint layers on the surface of the canvas, i.e. the consciously evoked structures, is perhaps the most important aspect of the concept." This artistic process, which questions the ontology of painting, cultivates and rewrites tradition simultaneously. Present on the local and national scene, Szentgróti is a teacher at the Secondary School of Art in Pécs. He lives and works in Pécs.

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Dávid SZENTGRÓTI
Imprinting 02

Dávid SZENTGRÓTI

Imprinting 02

Year(s)
2020
Technique
acrylic and pigment on canvas
Size
190x150 cm
Artist's introduction

Dávid Szentgróti is one of the most outstanding abstract gestural painters of the generation that emerged following the turn of the millennium, who cherishes the decades-old tradition of colourism and non-figurativity typical of Pécs. According to art historian György Várkonyi, "Dávid Szentgróti's paintings meet the timeless criteria of the 'easel painting' in every respect. These paintings are about painting itself: about the first movement and decision (...), about the poetic possibilities of the "application" of paint, the mixing/blending of colours relying on a variety of technical solutions, and the unfolding poetic possibilities." Szentgróti, born in Zalaegerszeg, graduated in painting from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pécs in 2006 and obtained his doctoral degree (DLA) in 2013. Since the 2000s, his œuvre has been enriched by the non-figurative painting tradition of Pécs, from the surrealist forms of Ferenc Martyn to the colourism of Ilona Keserü, to the compositional logic of Ernő Tolvaly. Vivid colours, expressive brushwork and figurative motifs between these gestures defined Szentgróti's works from the 2000s. In the 2010s, as he simplified his motifs, the abstract gesture applied with a broad brush became increasingly dominant. Towards the end of the decade, Szentgróti's non-figurative imagery – with its varied surface treatment – became increasingly dense. In contrast, the alternation of broad brushstrokes and expressive surfaces was replaced by fields of acrylic paint mixed with pigments, transforming the canvases into an increasingly bright and translucent direction. The paintings, built up from thin coats of paint, evoke the aesthetics and layering of digital image editing software. Although the seemingly spontaneous gestures evoke the instinctive image-making of Informel Painting, Szentgróti follows a carefully pre-determined artistic program. In the words of art historian János Schneller: "The superimposition of the paint layers on the surface of the canvas, i.e. the consciously evoked structures, is perhaps the most important aspect of the concept." This artistic process, which questions the ontology of painting, cultivates and rewrites tradition simultaneously. Present on the local and national scene, Szentgróti is a teacher at the Secondary School of Art in Pécs. He lives and works in Pécs.

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Szilárd CSEKE
Crimson and hilltop

Szilárd CSEKE

Crimson and hilltop

Year(s)
2020
Technique
oil and acrylic on canvas
Size
240x185 cm
Artist's introduction

Szilárd Cseke is one of the well-known artists of the generation who entered the scene in the 1990s, becoming known at home and internationally for his decorative, bright forest paintings and kinetic installations. Emese Révész analysed his painterly vision as a typical attitude of the 2000s: 'Cseke's painterly attitude is also a generational creed, the basic idea of which is the rehabilitation of painterly beauty, the defiant embrace of "pleasure painting". Returning to the old role of the painter, he is an illusionist who creates experiences, and his painting is both an object of relaxation and meditation." Szilárd Cseke, born in Pápa, studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Pécs and then at the Hungarian College of Fine Arts during the regime change. He first constructed mobile works of art from plastic, car tyres and fans, then painted monochrome still-lifes and storyboard-like scenes with soft, ephemeral brushwork. He found his distinctive stylistic world in the early 2000s as a prominent representative of the new mainstream of digital image-based painting emerging at the turn of the millennium. His decorative period, which began in 2002, with its serene mood, analysed the romantic, symbolic duality of forest trees and sky in a post-digital optical experience. He broke down the photo-based landscape into layers and then built up the image space step by step, creating a varied facture. In places, he scraped back or sanded back the smeared, painted, dripped-dotted oil, acrylic, enamel and lacquer paint. The rich surfaces of different properties and craft pushed the conceptual boundaries of digital image-making and traditional fine art. As art historian Sándor Hornyik said: "From a distance, the painting as a whole gives the impression of a digialtised photograph, but up close, the complexity of the 'ground' is revealed; the green patches do not break down into pixels but are organised into subtle brushstrokes (...) What is exciting about the end result is that it is both painterly and hyper-modern. The generic subject becomes secondary, but the technical complexity works brilliantly." After the emblematic forest paintings, Cseke returned to compositions following life and then built kinetic, conceptual installations with motors – analysing social relations. His largest installation ensemble, Sustainable Identities, was presented at the Hungarian pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2015. Constantly experimenting with new techniques, around 2020, Cseke revisited forest paintings, reverting to nature, in bright visionary colours, in response to the urban lifestyle changed by the pandemic. Cseke lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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János SZIRTES
Constantine, born in the purple

János SZIRTES

Constantine, born in the purple

Year(s)
1987
Technique
mixed media on canvas
Size
100x145 cm
Artist's introduction

János Szirtes is an iconic figure of the contemporary art scene in Hungary. He is a painter, a graphic artist, a performer, a video- and media artist and a high-impact teacher, reforming the tuition of art. He is the head of the Media Design Department at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest. The defining aspect of János Szirtes's four decades-long, interdisciplinary work is that in addition to his academic studies at the Bratislava College of Fine Arts and the Hungarian College of Fine Arts, he was also a member of the outstanding underground artistic workshops of the 1970s and 1980s. The innovative research conducted through experiments at the legendary Indigo Group led by Miklós Erdély, the general interdisciplinary attitude, the liberating, dadaist atmosphere of the Lajos Vajda Studio in Szentendre and the performances of Tibor Hajas, which opened up new avenues in art, all had a profound influence on the artistic position of János Szirtes. His paintings range from the tribal, organic-surrealist processing of motifs through a language of forms that breaks down living organisms into crystal-like shapes to multi-layered, formalist compositions, where the experience of space is established through the superimposition of layers and various ornamental elements. His images, which operate with expressive colours, dynamic forms, archaic symbols and motifs borrowed from other cultures, bring canonised and alternative (sub)cultures into a shared space. The creative process can be seen as an action, a performance or a rite – letting the image preserve the imprints of these gestures and movements that epitomise creative activity. Krisztina Kovács

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Anna Eszter TÓTH
Big Laundry Series I.

Anna Eszter TÓTH

Big Laundry Series I.

Year(s)
2021
Technique
acrylic, paper on canvas
Size
120x60 cm
Artist's introduction

Anna Eszter Tóth graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2014, majoring in painting, as a student of Zsigmond Károlyi, and then she participated in DLA doctoral studies.  In 2016 she was awarded the Barcsay Prize. Her artistic interests focus on constantly pushing the boundaries of panel painting, blurring the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, and the representation of spatial objects within the plane. Her favourite subjects include everyday objects, banal motifs and, above all, the artistic expression of activities that fall under the concept of invisible work. The piles of colourful textiles in her paintings and sculptures evoke the world of forms typical of abstract art, confronting the randomness of the compositions with the carefully composed patterns and fields of colour. She transforms the variously shaped piles of clothes into non-figurative spatial column compositions, somehow sculpting the constantly recurring, invisible and domestic tasks typically done by women, such as washing, hanging out clothes to dry, ironing and folding. The "close-up" observation, the abstraction of these banal activities is in fact a painting and visual experiment to display the wrinkling of materials, the randomness of forms and the stacking of layers in a variety of ways. The Giants and the Laundry series reflect on the themes and techniques of great periods of art history, marked by predominantly male artists, from a uniquely female perspective. As the artist puts it: "I discover abstract images in non-abstract situations. It's all a game between the plane and the spatial, between painting, sculpture, art and non-art. It's a reaction to the visual language and thinking of contemporary art about blurring boundaries and imprinting the world around us." Viktória Popovics

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1259-Toth-Anna-Eszter-Big-Laundry-Series-II.jpg
Anna Eszter TÓTH
Big Laundry Series II.

Anna Eszter TÓTH

Big Laundry Series II.

Year(s)
2021
Technique
acrylic, paper on canvas
Size
120x60 cm
Artist's introduction

Anna Eszter Tóth graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2014, majoring in painting, as a student of Zsigmond Károlyi, and then she participated in DLA doctoral studies.  In 2016 she was awarded the Barcsay Prize. Her artistic interests focus on constantly pushing the boundaries of panel painting, blurring the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, and the representation of spatial objects within the plane. Her favourite subjects include everyday objects, banal motifs and, above all, the artistic expression of activities that fall under the concept of invisible work. The piles of colourful textiles in her paintings and sculptures evoke the world of forms typical of abstract art, confronting the randomness of the compositions with the carefully composed patterns and fields of colour. She transforms the variously shaped piles of clothes into non-figurative spatial column compositions, somehow sculpting the constantly recurring, invisible and domestic tasks typically done by women, such as washing, hanging out clothes to dry, ironing and folding. The "close-up" observation, the abstraction of these banal activities is in fact a painting and visual experiment to display the wrinkling of materials, the randomness of forms and the stacking of layers in a variety of ways. The Giants and the Laundry series reflect on the themes and techniques of great periods of art history, marked by predominantly male artists, from a uniquely female perspective. As the artist puts it: "I discover abstract images in non-abstract situations. It's all a game between the plane and the spatial, between painting, sculpture, art and non-art. It's a reaction to the visual language and thinking of contemporary art about blurring boundaries and imprinting the world around us." Viktória Popovics

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1260-Toth-Anna-Eszter-Big-Laundry-Series-III.jpg
Anna Eszter TÓTH
Big Laundry Series III.

Anna Eszter TÓTH

Big Laundry Series III.

Year(s)
2021
Technique
acrylic, paper on canvas
Size
120x60 cm
Artist's introduction

Anna Eszter Tóth graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2014, majoring in painting, as a student of Zsigmond Károlyi, and then she participated in DLA doctoral studies.  In 2016 she was awarded the Barcsay Prize. Her artistic interests focus on constantly pushing the boundaries of panel painting, blurring the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, and the representation of spatial objects within the plane. Her favourite subjects include everyday objects, banal motifs and, above all, the artistic expression of activities that fall under the concept of invisible work. The piles of colourful textiles in her paintings and sculptures evoke the world of forms typical of abstract art, confronting the randomness of the compositions with the carefully composed patterns and fields of colour. She transforms the variously shaped piles of clothes into non-figurative spatial column compositions, somehow sculpting the constantly recurring, invisible and domestic tasks typically done by women, such as washing, hanging out clothes to dry, ironing and folding. The "close-up" observation, the abstraction of these banal activities is in fact a painting and visual experiment to display the wrinkling of materials, the randomness of forms and the stacking of layers in a variety of ways. The Giants and the Laundry series reflect on the themes and techniques of great periods of art history, marked by predominantly male artists, from a uniquely female perspective. As the artist puts it: "I discover abstract images in non-abstract situations. It's all a game between the plane and the spatial, between painting, sculpture, art and non-art. It's a reaction to the visual language and thinking of contemporary art about blurring boundaries and imprinting the world around us." Viktória Popovics

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Anna Eszter TÓTH
Big Laundry Series IV.

Anna Eszter TÓTH

Big Laundry Series IV.

Year(s)
2021
Technique
acrylic, paper on canvas
Size
120x60 cm
Artist's introduction

Anna Eszter Tóth graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2014, majoring in painting, as a student of Zsigmond Károlyi, and then she participated in DLA doctoral studies.  In 2016 she was awarded the Barcsay Prize. Her artistic interests focus on constantly pushing the boundaries of panel painting, blurring the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, and the representation of spatial objects within the plane. Her favourite subjects include everyday objects, banal motifs and, above all, the artistic expression of activities that fall under the concept of invisible work. The piles of colourful textiles in her paintings and sculptures evoke the world of forms typical of abstract art, confronting the randomness of the compositions with the carefully composed patterns and fields of colour. She transforms the variously shaped piles of clothes into non-figurative spatial column compositions, somehow sculpting the constantly recurring, invisible and domestic tasks typically done by women, such as washing, hanging out clothes to dry, ironing and folding. The "close-up" observation, the abstraction of these banal activities is in fact a painting and visual experiment to display the wrinkling of materials, the randomness of forms and the stacking of layers in a variety of ways. The Giants and the Laundry series reflect on the themes and techniques of great periods of art history, marked by predominantly male artists, from a uniquely female perspective. As the artist puts it: "I discover abstract images in non-abstract situations. It's all a game between the plane and the spatial, between painting, sculpture, art and non-art. It's a reaction to the visual language and thinking of contemporary art about blurring boundaries and imprinting the world around us." Viktória Popovics

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1262-Toth-Anna-Eszter-Big-Laundry-Series-V.jpg
Anna Eszter TÓTH
Big Laundry Series V.

Anna Eszter TÓTH

Big Laundry Series V.

Year(s)
2021
Technique
acrylic, paper on canvas
Size
120x60 cm
Artist's introduction

Anna Eszter Tóth graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2014, majoring in painting, as a student of Zsigmond Károlyi, and then she participated in DLA doctoral studies.  In 2016 she was awarded the Barcsay Prize. Her artistic interests focus on constantly pushing the boundaries of panel painting, blurring the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, and the representation of spatial objects within the plane. Her favourite subjects include everyday objects, banal motifs and, above all, the artistic expression of activities that fall under the concept of invisible work. The piles of colourful textiles in her paintings and sculptures evoke the world of forms typical of abstract art, confronting the randomness of the compositions with the carefully composed patterns and fields of colour. She transforms the variously shaped piles of clothes into non-figurative spatial column compositions, somehow sculpting the constantly recurring, invisible and domestic tasks typically done by women, such as washing, hanging out clothes to dry, ironing and folding. The "close-up" observation, the abstraction of these banal activities is in fact a painting and visual experiment to display the wrinkling of materials, the randomness of forms and the stacking of layers in a variety of ways. The Giants and the Laundry series reflect on the themes and techniques of great periods of art history, marked by predominantly male artists, from a uniquely female perspective. As the artist puts it: "I discover abstract images in non-abstract situations. It's all a game between the plane and the spatial, between painting, sculpture, art and non-art. It's a reaction to the visual language and thinking of contemporary art about blurring boundaries and imprinting the world around us." Viktória Popovics

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Attila CSÁJI
Bull breeder in the Labyrinth

Attila CSÁJI

Bull breeder in the Labyrinth

Year(s)
1973
Technique
mixed media on fibreboard
Size
58x50,5 cm
Artist's introduction

Attila Csáji was a prominent figure in the Neo-Avant-Garde art scene of the mid-1960s, one of the most important organisers of his generation, and a pioneer of Hungarian gesture painting and light art. Attila Csáji's inner essence, the symbolism of light, which permeates his "self-principled", multifaceted art, was summed up by Lóránd Hegyi: "For Attila Csáji, light is the phenomena that illuminates the "hidden face of nature". Light reveals the invisible, hidden, essential characteristics, uniting the intellectual and the organic world. In other words, light becomes a mystical force in his artistic world, capable of fusing the infinite cosmos and the infinite realm of the human spirit. " Born in Szepsi in Upper Hungary, Csáji, who moved to Budapest with his family as a child, graduated from the Teacher Training College in Eger in 1964. His works, referred to as "szürenon", created at the beginning of his painting career, combined surrealism and non-figurativity. In his mature oil paintings, calligraphic 'writing marks' and Informel figures, which bulged out plastically, were lined up on the surface as fictitious messages of archaic cultures. According to the artist's interpretation, "The Message Grids are plastic gestural structures, a pantomime or dance of the hand, transformed by light, messages that carry the spell of ancient cultures in the present, at the border between chaos and order." For a while, the ever-growing series of greyish-brown, metallically shimmering 'sign grids' was enriched with applied objects wrapped in black before returning to the sculptural paint mass. In the late sixties and early seventies, Csáji participated as a conceptual artist and active organiser in important events of the Neo-Avant-Garde scene (Szürenon Group, the Kápolna exhibitions in Balatonboglár, etc.). From the mid-seventies onwards, he began to work with various light technologies in the field of fine art, moving beyond the surrealistic relief effect, creating holographic works and laser installations. Driven by the thirst for scientific knowledge, in the 1980s, he studied laser technology at the Central Institute of Physics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, then reflection holography at the BME, and then transmission holography at the legendary MIT in the USA. Since the 1980s, his photographic work has been featured in important international exhibitions. His works are in several museums abroad, from Seoul to Cambridge. He has received numerous awards, including the Munkácsy Prize, and is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts and has patented a range of ideas. He lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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1393 Kis RĘka Csaba - Black or White
Róka Csaba KIS
Black or White

Róka Csaba KIS

Black or White

Year(s)
2020
Technique
oil, enamel, canvas
Size
169,5×139,5 cm
Artist's introduction

As a leading painter of Hungarian posthuman hybridity, he has been a regular participant in solo and group exhibitions for two decades, both on the local and the international scene. These include the Liverpool Biennial in 2010, a group exhibition at the Factory-Art Gallery in Berlin in 2011, then due to its impact, being added to the collection of the private MACT/CACT Museum and Center of Contemporary Art in Switzerland, and after 2011, one more Esterházy Art Award nomination in 2023. For the fourth time in his career, the central problem of his painting, the representation of the human figure, is ricocheted. While the few years following his graduation in 2007 were essentially characterised by the dynamic, dramatic contrasts of classical painting traditions such as Baroque and Romanticism, with a satirical overtone, in a naturalistic, horroristic narrative composition of colour and form, from the mid-2010s – having completely stripped of the realist approach – the influence of surrealism unfolded in the contrasting laboratory of “quite absurd, almost caricaturistically pathological subject matter”, as Gábor Rieder wrote on the artist’s exhibition titled Federation Of Decomposed Organs And Stripes. However, the distorted fragmentation of the human figure in his paintings reached its peak after 2020, as the human body parts became completely separated from their self-referentiality. The works from the same series, shown in the collection, are now abstract, deconstructed painting elements floating in the space of the picture, like the filtered presence of a cartoon character on another reality. The associative black and white stripe stamp, which is at once zebra carpet, hard-edge veneer constructions and the discount barcode of capitalist society, is applied to a predominantly colour-transitioned base layer, reminiscent of the typical colour palette of American car tuning. As a final layer of paintings, Kis Róka painted the deformed creatures, often distorted pop-cultural references, with the "melted gummy bear" effect of water-based enamel paint (Bad And Naughty, 2021). In the spring of 2023, however, the artist completely erased his hardware and dissolved the image space of his works in the pixel art bitmap matrix of trash aesthetics, making the distorted fragmentary creatures take full shape as stick figures again. Annamária Szabó

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1400 Kis RĘka Csaba - Blame The Flame
Róka Csaba KIS
Blame The Flame

Róka Csaba KIS

Blame The Flame

Year(s)
2020
Technique
oil, enamel, canvas
Size
120×95 cm
Artist's introduction

As a leading painter of Hungarian posthuman hybridity, he has been a regular participant in solo and group exhibitions for two decades, both on the local and the international scene. These include the Liverpool Biennial in 2010, a group exhibition at the Factory-Art Gallery in Berlin in 2011, then due to its impact, being added to the collection of the private MACT/CACT Museum and Center of Contemporary Art in Switzerland, and after 2011, one more Esterházy Art Award nomination in 2023. For the fourth time in his career, the central problem of his painting, the representation of the human figure, is ricocheted. While the few years following his graduation in 2007 were essentially characterised by the dynamic, dramatic contrasts of classical painting traditions such as Baroque and Romanticism, with a satirical overtone, in a naturalistic, horroristic narrative composition of colour and form, from the mid-2010s – having completely stripped of the realist approach – the influence of surrealism unfolded in the contrasting laboratory of “quite absurd, almost caricaturistically pathological subject matter”, as Gábor Rieder wrote on the artist’s exhibition titled Federation Of Decomposed Organs And Stripes. However, the distorted fragmentation of the human figure in his paintings reached its peak after 2020, as the human body parts became completely separated from their self-referentiality. The works from the same series, shown in the collection, are now abstract, deconstructed painting elements floating in the space of the picture, like the filtered presence of a cartoon character on another reality. The associative black and white stripe stamp, which is at once zebra carpet, hard-edge veneer constructions and the discount barcode of capitalist society, is applied to a predominantly colour-transitioned base layer, reminiscent of the typical colour palette of American car tuning. As a final layer of paintings, Kis Róka painted the deformed creatures, often distorted pop-cultural references, with the "melted gummy bear" effect of water-based enamel paint (Bad And Naughty, 2021). In the spring of 2023, however, the artist completely erased his hardware and dissolved the image space of his works in the pixel art bitmap matrix of trash aesthetics, making the distorted fragmentary creatures take full shape as stick figures again. Annamária Szabó

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1199-Goth-Martin-Bloodline.jpg
Martin GÓTH
Bloodline

Martin GÓTH

Bloodline

Year(s)
2021
Technique
acrylic on canvas
Size
100x150 cm
Artist's introduction

Martin Góth is one of the representatives of the young generation of Hungarian artists entering the art scene around 2020, who are developing a strong language of forms. On his acrylic tableaus, digital retro mixes with the theory of signs and subcultural icons. Martin Góth, born in Kaposvár, – following a detour to Berlin and Glasgow – graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2021, majoring in painting. His language of painting, which was then maturing, is constructed of schematized signs and pop-cultural motifs embedded in a geometric grid system. The basic organising theme of his images is the square mesh of old computer games and board games such as Tetris, minesweeper, tic tac toe or chess. The grid pattern is filled with the three-dimensional buttons, axonometric elements, pictograms and schematized icons familiar from early Windows. As curator Eszter Dalma Kollár explained, "the system of 8×8 cm squares and the 1 cm wide lines separating them is the base for each painting. Martin has filled these with a bunch of personal little stories, visual gags and fictional characters." The precise, pixelated aesthetic character of the digital retro-inspired form set is balanced by raw painting gestures, hand scribbles and graffiti marks. Góth's conceptual approach to art sometimes leaves the plane of the tableau and extends the playing field to the entire exhibition area. He has participated in several solo and group exhibitions in Hungary. He lives and works in Budapest. Gábor Rieder

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Tamás MELKOVICS
Blue kit Composition 9.

Tamás MELKOVICS

Blue kit Composition 9.

Year(s)
2020
Technique
modular composition made of 59 elements, carved and coloured MDF board
Size
240x90x80 cm
Artist's introduction

While watching the sculptures of Tamás Melkovics, they address me as acquaintances. Sculptures that we think are about to move, to crawl off the plinth, or perhaps even signal to us with some kind of sound. They are familiar because within the organic abstract world, the artist has found a language that speaks to our collective unconscious and evokes associations with the living world, living things, birth and movement. The art of Tamás Melkovics constantly expands the sculptural framework, but does not cross a certain boundary, it remains within the limits of the discipline. The artist graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2012 as a sculptor, his master was Ádám Farkas. In 2018 and 2021, he was awarded the Gyula Derkovits Fine Arts Scholarship. He exhibited at the Parthenon-Frieze Room in 2017 and at the Várfok Gallery Project Room in 2019. He has participated in several group exhibitions in Budapest, Szentendre, Székesfehérvár, Dunaújváros, Pécs and Edinburgh. In addition to private collections, his art is also included in the collections of the Ferenczy Museum Centre, the Csók István Gallery in Székesfehérvár, the Kiscelli Museum - Budapest Gallery, and the ICA-D Institute of Contemporary Art in Dunaújváros. In his creations, he seeks systems, basic rules, regularities, as if to reach back to the roots and structure of life and the perceptual world. The recurring basic modules are perhaps designed to explore these basic regularities. Movement is fundamental in his work. Even those works that are separate creatures begin a dialogue with each other. In the language of science, the sculptures can refer to fractals, to the principles of growth and evolution, the dynamics of nature, where nothing ever stops for a moment, where everything is in constant change, transformation, movement and interaction, because this is the basis of biological life. While the artworks often resemble natural forms such as trees or fruits, the anthropomorphic sculptures, which resemble Tony Cragg, question the foundations of human existence, and the complex structures that eventually settle into one final shape point to human relationships and connections. Délia Vékony

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0776-Ujhazi-Peter-Bolygos-kep.jpg
Péter UJHÁZI
Image with Planets

Péter UJHÁZI

Image with Planets

Year(s)
2011
Technique
acrylic on loose canvas
Size
207x136x2,5 cm
Artist's introduction

The Munkácsy Prize-winning artist Péter Ujházi graduated in 1966 from the Hungarian College of Fine Arts' Painting Department. There seems to be virtually no trace of his masters, János Kmetty and Aurél Bernáth, in his work, which was the case for many of his contemporaries, who wanted to create "New Art". Ujházi developed his pictorial universe during the 1970s: his artistic position could be characterised with an anti-aesthetic attitude and a new aesthetic, which opposed high art. Ujházi has retained a fundamentally narrative approach to this day (reinforced by textual segments appearing in the works) and has developed this through various technical means: paintings, box pieces, collages, graphic work, assemblages, artist books and a series of wooden, ceramic and iron sculptures. One of his innovations is the unique "carousel perspective", which is established by the simultaneous utilisation of several perspectives. His other characteristic innovation is the figurative attitude reminiscent of children's drawings and graffiti. He has painted three major historical compositions in this style (The Siege of Fehérvár and the Deportation of Wathay, 1972; The Last Pagan Rebellion, 1972–73 and Jellasics's Run, 1973). From the four edges of a painting, a straight path led to scenes staged in a cosmic dimension and the conservation of everyday life's distinct locations and figures in the form of panoramas composed on the surface of the canvas. Expressive colours and a vibrant, gestural brushwork characterises his series depicting landscapes and foliage, which forms a significant chapter in the artist’s oeuvre since the late 1960s. Krisztina Kocsis – Katalin Keserü

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