Martha Kicsiny 1995. 09. 21. Bristol, United Kingdom www.marthakicsiny.hu marthakicsiny@hotmail.com
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Soft Covering
Exhibition
Budapest, Hungary
Photos:
Curator: Anna Zsoldos
2021. 05. 20. - 06. 02.
Alina Vincze
Fiatal Képzőművészek Stúdiója,
Funding: NKA
Doró Novák
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Throne
2021 Digital print, molino 260 x 360 cm
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School
2021 Digital print, molino 410 x 295 cm
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Catafalque
2021 Digitális nyomat, molinó 410 x 295 cm
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Soft Covering
Dance Film 2021 Digital film with audio 9’35”
Directing, editing, music: Martha Kicsiny Dance Co-Creator: Kinga Szemessy
Cinematographer: Alina Vincze https://vimeo.com/555669050
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A short film made as part of Martha Kicsiny’s exhibition entitled Soft Covering to complement the artworks. The film was shot in the cellar of the gallery and was entitled dancefilm to reflect the hibrid nature of this film.
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During the work process, dance improvisation was given a lot of focus, which was then infused with the visual world of the exhibition. The film provides an abstract narrative for the art works.
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Cittá ideale Cittá ideale is a series of drawing made with felt-tip pens on paper in order to investigate and experiment with various structures, architectural styles, symbols and viewpoints as studies for the further development of my digital video pieces. The title alludes to the ideal city paintings by Renaissance architects who used their paintings to develop their perfectionist urban plans.
Cittá ideale VIII. (detail) 2021 70 x 50 cm Felttip pen, paper
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Cittá ideale VIII. 2021 Felttip pen, paper 70 x 50 cm
Cittá ideale VII. 2021 Felttip pen, paper 42 x 29 cm
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IV. 2021 Felttip pen, paper 21 x 29 cm
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2021 Felttip pen, paper 21 x 29 cm
Cittá ideale XI. 2021 Felttip pen, paper 29 x 21 cm
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Cittá ideale III. 2021 Felttip pen, paper 29 x 21 cm
Cittá ideale XII. 2021 Felttip pen, paper 29 x 21 cm
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Operative Gaze Short film version 2020 Digital film with audio 4’10” https://vimeo.com/444311923 The short film called Operative Gaze models a subordinating social structure in an abstracted way. It offering an insight into a world where the buildings are made of masses of living, naked human bodies for those privileged few, who use these spaces wearing clothes. The viewer can view this via the footage of security cameras and video bugs. These footages are also being observed by a fictional agent. It is his report that we can hear as the film’s narrative. This echoes the expressions used by the Soviet Era’s Spy system, as well as the way surveillance technology is used in our current times, enabling the viewer to face the past and the present at the same time. Due to the pandemic instead of collaborating with a crew and cast, the film was made entirely with 3D software.
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The Castro Villa, Balatonaliga. (Photo: Indafotó)
Mass Concrete Site-specific, multichannel videoinstallation 2020 Digital video with audio 2’40” Looped Castro Villa, Balatonaliga, Hungary
Budpaest University of Technology’s Architecture Society’s Club Aliga Festival enabled this video installation and a one day long workshop to take place in collaboration with Anna Zsoldos. The location of the video installation featuring the material of Operative Gaze were rooms and corridors of the Castro Villa in Balatonaliga. This provided an extraordinary context, since the agent’s report of the piece could be heared in places there many dictators and leaders on the Soviet Block that spent time in, such as János Kádár, Fidel Castro, Khrushchev and Brezhnev.
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Operative Gaze
Interface version
2’40”
2020
https://marthakicsiny.hu/
Digital video
operativtekintet/
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The interface version of Operative Gaze presents the project as if we were viewing the interface of a fictional agent’s computer at work. Due to the first wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Hungarian University of Fine Art was also closed, so instead of a degree show, the degree works had to be presented online, for which this version was made. It was composed for the situation when, instead of visiting art institutes, personal computers became the only platform on which art could be viewed. The interface version appears on the viewer’s own computer as if suddenly they become the agent working away. This gives them the opportunity to observe how the agent writes about the observed based on the CCTV footages. In this piece, the focus is on the loaded and dubious relationship between the observer and the observed.
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Exercises in Perception 2018 Digital video 5’17’’ https://vimeo. com/274267707
The main aim of Exercises in Perception is to draw in the viewer with its broad network of associations and to stimulate the development of thoughts. The piece’s starting point was facing power structures, as well as cultural and national guilt. How many people, willingly or unwillingly, gave their life for us to be able to live in this social, political and cultural, and even domestic situation that we know as our present, our identity and our home? Only what fragment of these victims do we normally commemorate and pay our respects to? During the video piece, we can see as spaces get built by naked bodies and then get lived in by people. These were made as animated digital photomontages which also raise questions regarding the representation, the sexualisation, the functionalisation and objectification of the human body. Furthermore, one can analyse the individual’s relationship towards themselves and their home as well.
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Unplastered
2018
Hidegszoba stúdió, Budapest,
Four channel videoinstallation
Hungary
3”00’ looped
Curator: Zita Marton
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In 2018 the exhibition called Unplastered was held in the Hidegszoba Stúdió in Budapest, Hungary. The central piece was the four-channel video installation format of Exercises in Perception. Each of the four short chapters was projected onto each wall so that the life-size bodies created an illusion of further rooms in the space. The heat generated by the projectors enhanced the impression of so many naked bodies being present. This gallery was located in an apartment, which also connected well to the work since the characters can be seen reconstructing their own rooms with their naked bodies. 150 fanzines were also made with the curator to accompany the exhibition, featuring the thoughts of 15 people of various ages and backgrounds reflecting on the work. The exhibition was opened by Tímea Laza’s and Eszter Szakás’s dance performance, which was made especially for this exhibition.
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Exercises in Perception Part of “the reconstruction of life” event series
2020 Video installation 5’17” looped One Night Public Gallery, Sopot, Poland
The Polish One Night Gallery organised a series of projections on a firewall in Sopot, Poland. As part of this series, Exercises in Perception was also featured throughout a weekend. Thanks to the firewall, the piece was able to become part of the urban space in an unprecedented way and became more accessible to the residence of the city as well.
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The House:
The Staircase
2017 Graphite, canvas 180 x 130 cm
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The House:
The Bedroom
2017 Graphite, canvas 180 x 130 cm
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Martha Kicsiny Place of birth: Bristol, United Kingdom Date of birth: 1995. 09. 21. Website: www.marthakicsiny.hu E-mail: marthakicsiny@hotmail.com Telephone: +36204870638
Education:
Born in Bristol in September of 1995, she then lived in London until the age of nine. Then she moved to Budapest, Hungary where she studied. Between 2014-2015 she took part in Arts University Bournemouth’s Foundation in Art and Design Course. From 2015 until 2020 she studied in Budapest at the Hungarian Fine Art University. In the Autumn semester of 2017 she was on Erasmus exchange at Edinburgh College of Art. She currently lives in Budapest and mainly works on experimental films, drawings and video installations.
2015-2020: Painter Artist Course, Hungarian University of Fine Art, Budapest, Hungary 2018-2019: Member of the College of Art and Art Theory, Budapest, Hungary 2017: Erasmus scholarship to the Painting course at Edinburgh College of Art, United Kingdom 2014-2015: Foundation in Arts and Design, Arts University Bournemouth, United Kingdom: Merit 2010-2014: Városmajori High School, Budapest, Hungary Selected Exhibitions and Screenings: 2021: Reality As It Happens to Me – group exhibition (MANK’s stand, Artmarket Budapest, Budapest, Hungary) 2021: Unreal Bonfires // Under Naked Skies – One-night open-air video projections (One Night Public Gallery, Barutana Creative Quarter, Kamnik, Slovenia) 2021: Skin Talks – Pixelache Festival – group screening and talk (Online & Oodi Helsinki Central Library, Helsinki, Finland) 2021: On the Yellow Silence – group exhibition (Konnektor, Budapest, Hungary) 2021: Soft Covering – solo exhibition (FKSE : Young Artists’ Association, Budapest, Hungary) 2021: Derkó 2021 | Reporting exhibition of the fine arts scholarship awardees – group exhibition (Műcsarnok, Budapest, Hungary) 2020: Club Aliga – Partraszállás – group exhibition (Fuga – Budapest Architectural Center, Budapest, Hungary) 31
2020: Mass Concrete – solo video art showcase (Castro Villa, Partraszállás Festival of the BME’s Architecture Collage, Balatonaliga, Hungary) 2020: I Told You – group exhibition (Mókus Bisztró, Budapest, Hungary) 2020: Mostra – solo video art showcase (OKNA, Porto, Portugal) 2020: reconstruction of life – solo video art showcase (One Night Public Gallery, Sopot, Poland) 2020: BODYIMAGE – The Nude in Contemporary Hungarian Photography – Budapest Photo Festival – group exhibition (Kiscelli Múzeum, Budapest, Hungary) 2020: A Screening of Short Films Made by University Students (Trafó, Budapest, Hungary) 2019: film as idea, film as film, film as art Film Festival – group screening (Studio Teatrgaleria,Warsaw, Poland) 2019: Diversity – The College of Art and Art Theory’s End of Year Exhibition – group exhibition (ISBN Gallery, Budapest, Hungary) 2019: OTTHON – group exhibition (OtthonÁruház, Budapest, Hungary) 2019: LOOPCAVE #8 Martha Kicsiny (UK) Exercises in Perception – solo video art showcase (LOOPCAVE, Desterro, Lisbon, Portugal) 2019: 2. Szerpentin Dance Film Festival – group screening of short films and dance performance collaboration (Három Holló, Budapest, Hungary) 2019: Ludwig Competition – group exhibition (Hungarian University of Fine Art, Budapest, Hungary) 2019: ERROR: THE ENTITY DOES NOT HAVE THE PROPER ATTRIBUTE – group exhibition (MAMŰ Galéria, Budapest) 2019: NEXTFESZT_3 – group screening of short films (Trafó, Budapest, Hungary) 2018: Secret Garden Film and Video Festival – group exhibition (Roman Catacomb Museum, Valkenburg, Netherlands) 2018: Unplastered – solo exhibition (Hidegszoba Stúdió, Budapest, Hungary) 2018: Danubiart 2018 Vernissage – group exhibition (Besucherzentrum Welterbe, Regensburg, Germany) 2018: _ _ _ _ _ Photography Exhibition – group exhibition (2B Gallery, Budapest, Hungary) 2018: WORKING TITLE 2 – group exhibition (MAGMA Contemporary Art Space, Sfântu Gheorghe, Romania) 2018: Paint It Till You Make It – group exhibition (B32 Galéria, Budapest, Hungary) 2018: Body Politics Course with Tobias Zielony – group exhibition (Ludwig Foundation & Hungarian University of Fine Art, Budapest, Hungary) 2018: Ludwig Competition – group exhibition (Hungarian University of Fine Art, Budapest, Hungary) 2017: Young Generation Art Fair – group exhibition (Godot Galéria & Zsilip, Budapest, Hungary) 2017: Einstand. – group art exhibition (Bánkitó Festival, Bánk, Hungary) 32
2017: We Live in Our Empire – first solo exhibition (Budapest Jazz Klub, Budapest, Hungary) 2017: Barcsay Competition – group exhibition (Hungarian University of Fine Art, Budapest, Hungary) 2016: Pop up group exhibition (Godot Gallery, Budapest, Hungary) 2016: Social Europe – Challenge Migration: Street Art 2016 – group exhibition (Erasmus+ & Fürstenfeld, Austria) 2016: Pesti Séta group exhibition (Gólya Presszó, Budapest, Hungary) 2016: Pesti Séta group exhibition (Zeg Zúg, Budapest, Hungary) 2015: Pesti Séta group exhibition (Janis Pub, Budapest, Hungary) 2015: Preparation for Higher Education Summer Show – group exhibition (Arts University Bournemouth, Bournemouth, United Kingdom) 2014: Budai Drawing School – group exhibition (KSH Library, Budapest, Hungary) AWARDS, ACHIEVEMENTS, COMPETITIONS: 2021: Derkovits Gyula Fine Art Scholarship 2021: Zero Step Residency, SÍN Art Center, Budapest, Hungary 2019: Special Mention, Hungarian Shorts, II. Szerpentin Dance Film Festival, Budapest, Hungary 2018: Shortlisted for the ICIA’s International Competition for Intermedia Artwork 2018, Krakow, Poland 2017: National Art Student Conference 2013: National High School Educational Competition in Drawing – 8th place 2013: National High School Educational Competition in Art History – 15th place PUBLICATIONS AND INTERVIEWS: 2021: MANK ArTér: Képtörténet – Kicsiny Martha: Cittá Ideale VIII. (In Hungarian) 2021: Építész Szakkollégium: Club Aliga: Tömegbeton (Architecture College: Club Aliga: Mass Concrete, in Hungarian) 2021: Tilos Rádió: Special:Defekt Martha Kicsiny, Artist (in Hungarian) 2021: A jelen disztópiája. A “Lágyburkolat” az FKSE-ben, Artpool (The Dystopia of the Present. “Soft Covering” in the FKSE, in Hungarian) 2020: Elle Magazin (2020. 07-08.): Tökéletlen, nem baj? (in Hungarian) 33
2019: Új művészet (2019. 6.): Mindenhol jó Otthon – Művészeti projekt a lakhatásról (Everywhere is Good at Home – Art Project about Housing, in Hungarian) 2018: Unplastered fanzine (in Hungarian) 2014: BUMF:Media – publication and interview WORKSHOPS (LEAD): 2020: Mass Concrete – Excavating Structures of Society in Kádár’s Villa (Partraszállás Festival of the BME’s Architecture Collage, Balatonaliga, Hungary) 2019: Student Union’s Hungarian University of Fine Art Group: Education Critique Workshop (Telep Gallery, Budapest, Hungary) 2019: Társadalomelmélet.rar: Cycling and Resistance Workshop (Summerrad Festival, Zebegény, Hungary) 2018: Társadalomelmélet.rar: Images of Resistance – Political Poster Making Workshop (Free October Festival, Gólya Presszó, Budapest, Hungary) WORKSHOPS (PARTICIPATED IN): 2021: Immersive Storytelling Workshop with High Road Stories Studio (Hungarian National Film Institute, Budapest, Hungary) 2020: AT x Kaos Camping x Analogue Film Workshop (Kővágóörs Art Camp, Kővágóörs, Hungary) 2018: Body Politics Course with Tobias Zielony, Ludwig Foundation (Hungarian University of Fine Art, Budapest, Hungary) 2016: Social Europe – Challenge Migration: Street Art 2016 Erasmus+ program (Fürstenfeld, Austria) LECTURES: 2019: Leap Dance Symposium: Dancing heritage, Tracing lineage (University of Otago, New Zealand)
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