July 10, 2019 - September 7, 2019
The season closing exhibition of VILTIN Gallery, entitled afternoon light of a hot wednesday can be conceptually placed in line with the gallery's small group exhibitions from the past three years. As a follow-up to x-play, which dealt with contemporary abstract painting and human project, which examined the contemporary figurative artistic approach, the exhibition, featuring the works of five artists finds common ground in the 1910's modernity.
It was typical of modernism to aim for autonomy, hence the isms, which on their own and independently from previous canons, provided the artists with endless freedom. These movements' rapid succession and parallel existence created an impressive and vivid artistic era that stands incomparable since. These astonishing times, which were rich in style and choice of media, - after a little artistic research - can be easily set in parallel with contemporary art. The simultaneous presence of abstract and figurative art's relevance, as well as the broad spectrum of expressions, make/can make our time an exciting art period.
Barry Schwabsky American art theorist in 2015, in his writing on contemporary painting, stated the following: 'The seemingly contradictory trends are not only valid simultaneously but complete each other. In our days, the characteristically divided cultural fields all interact with each other, and from time to time, create convergence.' In the art of the CEE region, we witness the same. The interactions are not only created between different cultural areas, but artists also follow the current state of natural and social sciences. The fighting will of reaction, thinking, for instance, of art inspired by politics or socio-politics, and the meditative, clear and vigilant, almost melancholic musing are present at the same time.
To return to the beginning of the 20's Century with the previous analogy: The French and American audiences considered the German expressionism as wild, aggressive, Barbar-Teutonic, and closely linked to politics. Contrarily, and in spite of all of their similarities, the French 'expressive' artists followed the ideology of Henry Matisse. Subsequently, art is supposed to be 'consistent, clean and calm, setting aside the confusing and depressing topics.' Karl Ruhrberg, one of the authors of the book Art of the 20th Century, writes: 'While Matisse aimed for calamity and joy, the German expressionists wanted to upset and throw their spectators into fewer.' Hundred years after Matisse's statement, not only formal similarities can be revealed between the early avant-garde and contemporary art, but correlations are demonstrated in attitude, ideology, and dynamics.
The exhibition highlights the principal-based repetitions of analogies and the importance of following traditions. Levente BÁLVÁNYOS (1966) recalls Lajos Kassák's constructivism or George Braque's cubism in his spatial collages and reliefs consisting of found objects. Dóra JUHÁSZ's (1974) vibrant, feeling-charged brushwork is in parallel with Oscar Kokoschka's expressive painting reflecting the era's uncertainties as well as with Matisse's early works exuding endless permanence and calamity. In the experimental photographs of Péter KISS (1962) camera-free 'laboratory' results can be seen: photograms - the technique's pioneer was the avant-garde photographer, Man Ray. Benjámin NAGY's (1985) painted collages with their surreal ambition to construct and deconstruct are reminiscences of the melancholy-soaked, monochromic paintings of Giorgio de Chirico or the works of Dezső Korniss. Andreas WERNER's (1984, DE-AT) futurism inspired by sci-fi writers is a correspondence with the set-designs of 1910's architects.