Currated

C U R R AT E D E X H I B I T I O N S 2018

PHOTOEXHIBI-

CATALOG - MADE BY: VARGA SZABOLCS LAJOS

THIS EXHIBITION IS A GROUP PROJECT THAT ONE OF MY MATES, MARTHA KICSINY, AND I CURATED IN THE 2B GALLERY. THE EXHIBITION IS CO-ORGANIZED BY THE HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY OF FINE ARTS, REVESZ LASZLO’S DEPARTMENT. WITH MARTHA, WE HAD A LOT OF CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE CLASS AND WE DECIDED THAT WE WANT TO MAKE AN UNUSUAL EVENT. FROM YEAR TO YEAR, USUALLY THE DEPARTMENTS IN THE

UNIVERSITY ORGANIZE AN EXHIBITION AND PRESENT INDIVIDUAL ARTWORKS FROM EACH PERSON. THIS IS THE PICTURE FESTIVAL SYNDROME. WE WANT TO MAKE A CURRENT CONCEPT WHAT IS TOTALLY FLEXIBLE TO OUR EXHIBITORS. IN THE VERY BEGINNING WE FOUND OUT WE CAN AVOID THIS SYNDROME IF WE CHANGE GENRE, SO WE AGREED ON A COMMON MEDIUM: PHOTOGRAPHY.

ALTAR FOR DEAD CARS - VARGA SZBOLCS LAJOS - PHOTO: NIKOLETT SZABO

D E TA I L S PLACE: 2B GALLERY CURATED: MARTHA KICSINY & VARGA SZABOLCS LAJOS WHEN ? 2018. AUG. 9

WE ORGANIZED THE GROUP OF EXHIBITORS, TALKED WITH OUR DEPARTMENT MASTER, AND STARTED TO WRITE THE CONCEPTION OF THE EXHIBITION TOGETHER. There are _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ young artists, who are the students of the Hungarian Fine Art University’s Painting Course and members of Révész László László’s class. Together they have created an experimental photography project titled _ _ _ _ _. With a digital/post-intermedia starting point, the participants rethink their photographs in connection with the relationship between the exhibition space and the art work. The aim of the project is to use the artists’ experience in painting to create an exhibition situation that primarily explores the opportunities within intermedia photo installations.

The central theme organically developed as the selected photographs were collected. They mainly depict empty spaces, lacking in narratives, rather focusing on forms and composition. The recorded places are void of people, only the tools and traces left behind can be witnessed. The strong, geometric compositions create systems, which then become broken by the objects that appear in these barren spaces, forming non-nar-

rative, abstract situations.

These images typically keep an objective distance between the viewer and the viewed: we are only momentarily witnesses of these scenes.

Destroyed, decaying or altered manufactured objects can be seen in natural or partially controlled natural environments.

The entire series is signified by the silence that is present between the observer and the observed. This silence is also expressed in the exhibition’s title: five absence-characters, which reflect the subjects above more precisely than any letter, word or expression.

MARTHA FOUND A HOME FOR OUR PROJECT, AND SHE KEPT A CONNECTION BETWEEN US AND 2B GALLERY. SHE USED A CATALOG, WHICH I DESIGNED FOR THIS OCCASION. I ALSO DESIGNED THREE VERSIONS OF POSTERS FOR THE EXHIBITION.