The church-area is not suited for the organizing of big,
summarizing oeuvre exhibition. The one of András Koncz is
not one of these either, still more than one-and-a-half decade long career
is presented to us, from the painting of 1986 entitled Afternoon Desire
, to the one painted this year entitled We spoiled it. The collection of
these works of art is thus not aimed at giving a chronological overview,
much rather at depicting the chain of motives and themes related to the
portrayal past and present, they shed light on the condition of Koncz’s
present works.
The explosive start of his career, which made Koncz
one of the leading figures of new Hungarian painting cannon, shall be present
with his work of 1986, which makes the same impressions today as it did
one-and-a-half decade ago. It’s a peculiar mix of narrative and still life
motives, with its silhouette-like figures and objects, its warm counter-lights
and colorful contours; it is a mysterious and longing composition tying
together past and present. This was the period (1986-87) when he painted
grand scale portrays as well, these weren’t actual portrays, much rather
passionate and mysterious sketches of an age, prints of an attitude towards
life, which with their peculiar cuts and enormous size determined the art
of Koncz almost as emblems. Of these a recalled version shall be present,
from 1999 (“I” am in the pattern) onto which three further style layers
of his career have been added. The self-portrait is itself a reminiscence,
the re-playing of a conceptual photo series of the ’70-s, the tapestry
motive of the ’90-s and the geometrical signs of the beginning of the third
millennium, the circles, are present within one work. It seems to be a
summarizing work, not only iconographically, but also in a manner which
incorporates all of what Koncz wishes to say about painting: mysterious,
narcissistic, finely marked, complicated reminiscence-system, which relates
not only to himself but also to the history of art, and is in the meantime
filled with amazing sensual-charge.
The double work painted in 2002, conceptually also
stands quite close to the before mentioned period, We spoiled it (Malewich),
were two boards, a small and a huge one were fitted together by the artist.
Two thirds of the higher monumental board shows a strict face in a quite
peculiar deformation, before it a man upside-down in a bathing suit, depicted
in a quite different scale, while the remainder of the area is filled with
a flower pattern motive. Thus constituted of exceptionally rich techniques,
painted with vigorous colors, making up a wallowing composition. The lower
small, aligning board is a Malewich reminiscence: a rationally puritan
work, lining up geometrical figures, depicting gray-white shapes, flashing
a bright yellow square, in sharp contrast with the board above, almost
in conflict with it, still capable of brining about a bizarre harmony in
the composition as a whole.
The newer recalling of the archaizing “roman period”,
with its depiction of apostles and angels, is also present, The Apostle
watches the 20th Century, Aristotle converses with me, The Apostle does
not believe in God, were made with similar portraying techniques, before
the richly rampant pattern motives of the background finely drawn roman
sculpture motives combine with the mean and playful pop up figure of Donald
Duck. This is the best line of the curious cultural reminiscence system
of Koncz, uniting trans avant-garde mythology, with references to art history
and the artist himself.
A similar concept may be found in today’s works
(Piet Mondrian and András Koncz in wallpaper-pattern, Matisse
speaks about a woman), where one-one homage composition, Mondrian and Matisse,
is touched upon and transformed in an András Koncz-ian manner to
convert the world of art history to his own.
András Koncz has not had a major exhibition
since 1998, thus hopefully the present one will open new horizons for him.
Péter Fitz
