Aerosol Windows of the Soul
An interview with Jon Burgerman
Patrick Tayler
Jon Burgerman’s mesmerising stand-alone figures and choirlike paintings are magnetically endearing but also confrontational. Their intense features pulsate ferociously, finding ways to get imprinted behind your eyelids. His work dissolves categories, oscillating between genres and functions, creating new audiences, viewers and fandoms. To learn about the complexity of the issues at hand, I talked with the multifaceted artist who is also one of the exhibitors of the thematic group show titled The Cuteness Factor.
The Journey
János Fajó and the Pesti Workshop
The touring exhibition titled The Journey – János Fajó and the Pesti Workshop will be launched in several Chinese venues in cooperation with MNB Arts and Culture, the cultural branch of the Central Bank of Hungary (Magyar Nemzeti Bank, MNB) and the Fajó Foundation. The first exhibition will open in Shanghai’s Liu Haisu Art Museum on 19 August 2023.
Temporality in Cross-Section
Liquid Slices of Time — Female Artists from the MNB Contemporary Collection
Alex Kovács
The House of Arts in Veszprém —taking advantage of the attention directed towards the city due to the European Capital of Culture programme— is devoting several of its current exhibitions to art created by women. Among these, the first joint exhibition of the House of Arts and MNB Arts and Culture —the organisation managing the collection of the Central Bank of Hungary— entitled Liquid Slices of Time is a unique arrangement curated by Kinga Hamvai, head of MNB’s division dealing with the institution’s contemporary collection.
Domain
An interview with Dániel Erdély, Maria Lavman Vető and János Vető
Noémi Forián Szabó
The exhibition Domain#2 by Dániel Erdély, Mária Vető Lavman and János Vető was on view at the ffrindiau gallery in Budapest between the 10th and the 21st of November 2022. The material for the exhibition came from Sweden, where it was shown in 2021 at the Rostrum Gallery in Malmo under the title Domain.
Unfolding a Collection
An interview with Kinga Hamvai, Sungah Serena Choo and Zsolt Petrányi
Patrick Tayler
When an expanding collection wants to preserve its momentum, it cannot stay within the confines of the local art scene for long. Instead, it has to be activated and re-investigated in various new contexts, generating several alternative interpretations that further inform the collection’s pieces. MNB Arts and Culture has shifted its attention, thus, to re-imagining the perspectives of Hungarian art on an international scale.
Superpositional transitoriness
On Manifesta 14 Prishtina
Róna Kopeczky
For the first time in its history, Manifesta Biennial is hosted by a country from the Balkan peninsula. For the second time in its history, it is hosted by a country of the ex-Yugoslav territory, after a 3rd edition held in Ljubljana in 2000.
Layers of time
Interview with Andreas Fogarasi
Flóra Kőszeghy
Andreas Fogarasi lives and works in Vienna, but he is also involved in the Hungarian art scene. With his video installation Kultur und Freizeit he received the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale in 2007. His work has been featured in group and solo exhibitions at renowned institutions from Mexico to Paris. His solo exhibition, with the title Skin Calendar at the Budapest Galéria closed on 22nd of May. The show was interesting not only for the fine arts scene, but also for those interested in architecture and cultural heritage. I asked Andreas about the conceptual layers of the exhibition.
Visualising the Systematic Disease
The artistic visions of Mihael Milunović
Attila Sirbik
The Paris-based artist Mihael Milunović expresses the language of world politics and social movements through visual means. His paintings delve deeper and deeper into the mechanics of these systems, revealing their dark, invisible and complex inner workings. When visuality is the primary means of interpreting the world, Milunović recognises the important role of painting. His intricate body of work offers multiple layers of meaning, guiding the viewer into a zone where they can gain new insights, new perceptions and new answers, where they can truly explore their curiosity and break away from themselves. If that is even possible…
Terra Incognita
Charting the Undocumented Zones of Artistic Practice – An Interview with Paul Barsch
Patrick Tayler
One has to delve into alternatively designed web-based platforms and explore multifaceted physical spaces and objects to experience the complex and subversive artistic practice of Dresden and Berlin-based artist Paul Barsch (born in 1982, Karlsburg). In a recent web-deconstructing, conceptual labyrinth titled New Scenario, Paul Barsch and Tilman Hornig reinvestigated the possible sites of artistic performance, ranging from the neo-baroque curves of a limousine’s interior to the light-flooded orifices of the human body or the sombre, hellish vistas of Chernobyl. As a result, the forever-moving artwork – a sketch or an unidentified flying object – becomes an enigmatic point of contemplation, losing its tight bonds with the art world’s neutral lighting panels and dominant white walls. In order to rethink some of the scene’s more crusty, persisting notions, I talked with Paul Barsch about the shifting notion and function of art from a more global perspective, touching upon the various metanarratives and subtextual layers that emerge from his collaborative pieces and individual work.
Reality Check
From the Art of Pickle Politics to the Science of Freedom
Patrick Tayler
Róna Kopeczky recently curated a large-scale, international exhibition in Tallinn reflecting on the many current dilemmas and issues we face in the Central and Eastern European region. I talked with the curator about the philosophical-social insights that shaped the exhibition’s conceptual background and the larger-scale perspectives that permeate the complex network that connects the showcased artworks and practices.
“…for the Lonely Distant Baby Souls”
An interview with Joakim Ojanen
Patrick Tayler
Tearjerker, eye bender, fall over! Figures moving about, minding their business in their world filled with thingamajigs and overall tomfoolery. In the work of Joakim Ojanen brouhaha and hahaha echo around the endless stage of existence. The snakes and ladders of fortune take us from happy, uplifting moments to tragic seconds of light misery. Fiddlesticks! One is always only a second away from breakdown or total catharsis.
Post-Yu+th Art Biennale
Complicity of Anonymous Materials
Post-Yu+th – is second edition of the regional youth art biennale in Montenegro. Contextualized within the sphere of peripheral art-worlds in post-Yugoslav countries and with the chance to merge the different cases and scopes in practices of emerging artists that are exemplary and not usually able to share meeting point.