It is difficult to be modern today is my conclusion from the Strabag exhibition this year. Uniform and talented material, colorful and interesting technical solutions, from the everyday mundane to the heightened dimension of spirituality. Therefore...
Everything is together for a good, contemporary exhibition. It's together, it's viewable, but yet....what prevents me from extolling the current winners? What is the ballast - to quote the title of the picture series of award winning Orsolya Szabo - which these creations carry within them? First of all, perhaps the many familiar elements that is recognizable from the albums and the exhibition halls of the National Art Galleries. Csernus and his followers "Caravaggio's" virtuosity comes to life again on the still life pictures of Attila Adorjan. Demanding work that was painted well with proper balance of color and size, but when Csernus paints a slice of cake on a canvas one tenth the size, that's bravado (you may see that displayed on the wall of the new Erdesz-Maklary Gallery on Falk Miksa utca). Or from the early eighties, the extremely grotesque chickens stew from Istvan Nyari. Adorjan's work is very discerning. A task well done. Of course this is not a problem, on the contrary, how nice it would be if we could see this trend from others as well.
And then, from the award winning Dorottya Szabo, I seem to detect the wispy, bloomy fine work reminiscent of Marlene Dumas. This is not a problem, and Szabo shows her technical bravado (aquarelle like varnish and oil surfaces surrounding the portrait) and yet there is the specific gravity difference between the oppressing heavy Dumas and the featherweight Szabo... Well here is the ballast.
Similarly to Dorottya Szabo, Dezso Szabo, a well known photo, mockup and disaster artist is now using lacquers, plastics to change the images of gore into some nice surface. He has succeeded. However to me the secretive, indecipherable Dezso Szabo is the real thing.
Nora Soos is smoothly developing in decorative painting; these creations far surpass the ones she displayed last year at the Friss exhibition. In her work, however, I seem to detect the colors and lines of Eszter Radak and Sigmund Polk. Ballast. Must throw it out!
Lastly, Zsuzsa Moizer. For me, she was the greatest discovery. I have not seen, or I do not remember seeing, her earlier work. Sensitive artistry and delicate femininity are individually present in her three portraits. (Angel is) Neither of these artworks are void of some influence of Dumas and other largely German neo-expressive impressions, but the more familiar motives are present in her own form..
Are these youngsters carrying as ballast the weight of needing to please the demand of curators to produce work that can be displayed and sold in art galleries and exhibitions? They must succeed today or there is no tomorrow, since the new, younger generation is already at their heels. So, it is necessary to hurry, create, sometimes not quite developed, but current.
Still, the five exhibiting artists are giving us viewers' pleasure and perhaps they surprise the critics with art of specific gravity without the ballast. The Strabag prize winning artists exhibition is at the Ludwig Kortars (Contemporary) Art Museum.