calendario eventi  :: 

X

15/5/2008

Portraits of yesterday, today and tomorrow

f a projects, London

f a projects is presenting "Portraits of yesterday, today and tomorrow", an exhibition that premieres the work of four young Hungarian born and based painters in London: Zsolt Bodoni, Roland Horvath, Peter Sudar, and Dorottya Szabo.

The artists are part of a unique generation that knew communism in childhood, witnessed its disintegration during adolescence and experienced Hungary’s transition into democracy in early adulthood. Yet while it is possible to find evidence of how such an eventful growing up has shaped and influenced the artists’ awareness of the changing world around them (most notably perhaps in Horvath’s sensitive, even reverential treatment of the most mundane domestic appliances or tacky ephemera), it is equally possible to see how the weight of Hungary’s great imperial past has impressed itself on the minds of its artists, such as in Szabo’s strange depictions of heads coupled with images derived from the popular decorative stone work of the imperial period.

While the subject matter of the four artists is highly varied, many of their works could be regarded as portraits despite the absence in some of human form. Historically, artists have often used the still life as a means of creating a portrait (projecting the self onto an object such as a chair, thus at once protecting the sitter while at the same time communicating a sense of loneliness or anxiety). That this is a recurring motif in contemporary Hungarian painting is unsurprising when one considers identity remains a sensitive issue in Hungary (for example, many Hungarians find their roots in the countries of the former Austro-Hungarian empire and Transylvanian Hungarians hold Romanian passports, yet they are classed as ‘Ethnic Hungarians’).

Sudar’s portraits, however, engage directly with the viewer. In a series of works that could be described as his ‘modern helmet series’, he has carefully selected suggestive contemporary props to ‘accessorise’ the figure in order to ape some of art history’s most iconic works, such as Velasquez’s Mars (c 1599-60). If Sudar’s portraits are challengingly direct, Bodoni’s works sweep us into a dark theatre of suppressed anger and melancholy and bright bursts of passion; the artist capturing our attention with his use of broad and gestural brushwork. There is humour too – albeit dark and ironic, and this runs a course through the show underscoring all of the artists’ work.

F a projects
1-2 Bear Gardens SE1 9ED - London

stampa

permanent link