In focus: Young Contemporary Hungarian Artists at derkó.pécsi.2014

This year's Easter weekend was marked by a visit to Budapest's Kunsthalle contemporary art museum located in 1895 eclectic-neoclassicism building in the Heroes' square. Strolling at night after a heavy Hungarian dinner, I have noticed a big announcement of Shirin Neshat's exhibition and my visit followed the next day.  

Little I knew about the contemporary art in Hungary, so the discovery of quite a few names paid off my early Sunday morning pilgrimage. The group exhibition consisted of Derkovits Gyula Fine Arts Scholarship holders' artworks. My  favorite were István Felsmann's Lego Relief pieces and witty pieces and a witty installation of three maneki-neko sculptures playing music instruments as well as Gábor Koós's Budapest Diary large-scale prints and wooden stencils (I have been quite lucky to try to make some on my own in Autumn 2013). 

 István Felsmann, Hospital, acryl, lego, 2010

 István Felsmann, Hospital, acryl, lego, 2010. Detail

István Felsmann, D.M.Z, print, lego, 65X65, 2013

 István Felsmann, D.M.Z, print, lego, 65X65, 2013. Detail

István Felsmann, Newspaper, lego, newspaper, 34X45, 2011

István Felsmann, Newspaper, lego, newspaper, 34X45, 2011. Detail

 István Felsmann, Composition, lego, paper, 34X45, 2010

István Felsmann, Booklet, lego, booklet, 34X45, 2009

István Felsmann, Maneki-neko Playing Bass, installation, 2014

Gábor Koós's Budapest Diary series, print, 2014

 Gábor Koós's Budapest Diary series, stencil, 2014

 Gábor Koós's Budapest Diary series, print, 2014

Gábor Koós's Budapest Diary series, stencil, 2014

Works of Judit Rita Raboczky reminded me a variation of Pawel Althamer's 2011 commission for Deutsche Guggenheim, Venetians large-scale sculpture installation for 2013 Venice Biennial while the installation of Szanyi Borbàla - to another Polish artist NeSpoon whose works are based on lace patterns usually inserted into urban landscapes. However, for this associative exercise, there is a separate post.

Judit Rita Raboczky, Looking in the Mirror, 2011, achor

Judit Rita Raboczky, Looking in the Mirror, 2011, achor. Detail

Judit Rita Raboczky, 2011, achor

Pawel Althamer at Venice 2013 Biennale with a variation of his 2011 commission for Deutsche Guggenheim, Venetians large-scale sculpture installation

Szanyi Borbàla, YSA PUR III, 2013, iron

NeSpoon, Franciacorta project for Art Kitchen Foundation. Source: artist's Behance page

Click here for more photos and videos

Amsterdam-Budapest and the focus on Iranian art

Earlier this month I have visited Amsterdam-based FOAM photography museum to check Kaveh Golestan's The Citadel 1975-77 photo documentary project of Tehran's Shahr-e No red light district. Literally translated as a "New City" Shahr-e No was an old 1920 neighborhood that got surrounded by walls in 1953 exclusively inhabited by female and young male prostitutes. The entrance to the ghetto where prostitutes were walking on the streets semi-naked was through one gate and only men were allowed to enter the citadel. 

Few weeks before the victory of the 1979 Islamic revolution the activists burned and demolished the "sin city" with undisclosed number of residents trapped inside, the survived inhabitants were later executed as a part of post-revolutionary cultural cleaning. The area has been converted into a recreational zone with a park and a pond. Thus, Golestan's photo archive is one of the few remained documentations that trace back nowadays unspoken and shameful part of Tehran city's history. Women most of whom he befriended during almost two year-lasting project are humanized through the lens of Kaveh's camera that captures natural, non-staged moments of their daily lives. Vintage photographs together with a newspaper compilation, Golestan's diaries and other materials such as Iranian authorities documents as well as audio-taped interviews of the women living in the citadel immersed me in their ambience of misery and despear. 

Shahr-e No's citadel 1920 plan

Kaveh Golestan's The Prostitutes series, 1975-1977. Source: artist's website

This week theme of Shahr-e No unexpectedly reappeared during my Hungarian Easter getaway at Budapest's Mûcsarnok with New-York based Shirin Neshat's small, but very powerful video installation exhibition. This first Budapest solo show comprises from a surrealistic two-channel 1993 Rapture video shot in Marocco and a twenty-minute chapter Zarin where the leading role is played by a Hungarian actress Orsi Tóth. This 2005 piece is about Shahr-e No resident Zarin who decided to flee the ghetto and her humiliating present. A part of the artist's bigger reclaimed project based on 1989 Women Without Men novel by Shahrnush Parsipur, this video chapter is aesthetically and eloquently reveals an unpleasant and controversial topic of women in society and their sexual exploitation.

Stills from Shirin Neshat's 2005 Zarin video 

Shirin Neshat's 2009 Silver Lion awarded Women Without Men trailer with English subtitles

Shirin Neshat's 2009 Silver Lion awarded Women Without Men full movie in Farsi

Post-screening discussion with Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari

Note: Kaveh Golestan's exhibition in FOAM lasts until May 4, 2014 and Shirin Neshat's - April 27, 2014.

When Lady Gaga was not even born...

...there was a Dutch duet whose creations she would definitely wear. 

Gijs Bakker and Emmy Van Leersum, "couple from the year 2000", as they were called by a journalist covering their revolutionary show opening at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum Edelsmeden 3 (Silversmith 3) back on May 12, 1967, were also partners in real life. In the first five years of their marriage they signed a number of jewelry designs with GIJS+EMMY stamps, represented by two plus signs. 

The duet placed great emphasis on the relationship between jewelry and human body and was the first to use industrial materials such as lightweight aluminum or hard, unruly stainless steel. Space theme, massive and unusual forms, choice of cheap and affordable materials are the main characteristics of their bold creations. 

Decades later, the museum decided to get back to the legendary and provocative designers by creating a temporary show (on view until August 24, 2014) inspired by 1967 exhibition.  

photos of the entry video reconstructing the 1967 show ambience

full video

Probably, these items have been inspiration for Maison Martin Margiela jewelry department

 

 ...and these for Philip Treacy's creations

"basic garments" rejecting the fashion dictates of Parisian haute couture

In 1967 show the garments were worn by designers' friends who shocked the visitors by appearing among them in these futuristic garments and later walked out in the streets of Amsterdam. One witness has claimed to see the "spacemen" while others found them quite "absurd romper suits"

The Rediscovery of Jackson Pollock

I have recently started watching a series of lectures by UC Berkeley Practice of Art from Spring 2011 edition. In his lecture Introduction to Visual Thinking Professor John S. McNamara has asked the class (of probably freshmen, mostly American students) whether they know and like Jackson Pollock. Those, who “really respond to his work” were “a small number of a small number”. I felt some disappointment in the speaker’s voice, so probably to somehow justify such a low awareness the lecturer added that Pollock is “a very hard artist to understand”.

Myself, I have been first introduced to Pollock back in 2004 when as a Business major student, I was also allowed to take art studio classes at Baskin Visual Arts Center that turned into the brightest memories of my entire year at UCSC. Professor Frank Galuszka was very passionate about Pollock and his dripping technique, but at that time I was more into Kandinsky basing my paintings on his color theory after reading Concerning the Spiritual in Art 1910 book. 

The rediscovery of Jackson Pollock happened back in early October 2013 thanks to Pollock and The Irascibles – The New York School at Palazzo Reale, a part of Autunno Americano cultural project that brought Whitney Museum of American Art collection, including one of the most famous Pollock's painting Number 27 (1951), to Milan. Even those who do not like abstract expressionism or are as indifferent as I was before, will find it interesting to attend. Well-curated, with only few minor defects such as broken light (that is probably fixed by now) was giving a special shadow effect to Morris Louis painting, a video presentation by Luca Beatrice only in Italian (watch here) and a bit confusing flow/signage as well as an odd location of a gift shop inside the exhibition space instead of being adjacent to it (right after the first room, yet, with the entrance from the last exhibition hall), the show is a great way to discover and to learn about the first pure American art movement and its key figures. While the focus is on Pollock, exhibition represents other painters of post-war USA such as William De Kooning, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Ad Reinhardt, Clifford Still, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Richard Pousette-Dart. The Irascibles or Irascible 18, as they were called after submitting an open letter to New York's Metropolitan Museum director boycotting American Painting Today - 1950 exhibition are depicted on a famous photograph dressed up in suits as respectful bankers (except Pollock who already made a huge effort by taking off his favorite jeans and wearing a suit). 

In addition, the exhibition has a good mix of learning and fun thanks to video installation showing dripping technique in action as a step-by-step digital process or an option to lay down on a comfy sofa and look up where an extract of Jackson Pollock 51 documentary by Hans Namuth is screened. As far as I know, this is the only time when Pollock was speaking on camera when he was making a painting. 

the digital step-by-step process creates a white space on the floor into Pollock's Number 27 painting. Click here to learn more about this artowrk

 

A brilliant idea of placing the visitors below the screen with the video gives an effect of Pollock painting on you

Jackson Pollock 51 (1951) documentary by Hans Namuth, full movie

The sound is not the greatest, so here's the extract on Jackson Pollock's attitude to painting: 

“I enjoy working on a large canvas. I feel more at home, more at ease, in a big area. 

Having the canvas on the floor I feel nearer, more a part of the painting. This way I can walk around it, work from all four sides and be in the painting, similar to the Indian sand painters of the West. 

Sometimes I use a brush but often prefer using a stick. Sometimes I pour the paint straight out of the can. I like to use a dripping fluid paint. I also use sand, broken glass, pebbles, string, nails, or other foreign matter. 

A method of painting is a natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. 

Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement. When I am painting I have a general notion as to what I am about. I can control the flow of the paint. 

There is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end. Sometimes I lose a painting, but I have no fear of changes...of destroying the image. Because a painting has a life of its own, I try to let it live.”