Art 13 London
Viltin gAllery – StAnd yg17
(young galleries Section)
H-1054 Budapest, Hungary
The mindset of East-European artists is strongly characterized by an investigating and collecting artistic attitude that tends to reflect on social and thereby cultural past. It often involves social or direct political reflections, and also an interpretation of the status of the contemporary East-European artist in a universal European art medium. VILTIN Gallery introduces two such artists and their works based on the importance of searching, collecting and this ’historical’ thinking that reflects on the near past. From the artefacts of cultural memories discovered this way they create works presenting their own individual constellations.
ZSOLT TIBOR basically starts out with a ’painter’s’ approach, then he bulids and draws according to the outcome of his perceptions and investigations. He interprets and re-interprets the current position of drawing. His set of tools ranges from acrylic and oil paint, through various adhesive tapes and found objects, to the projected image – but first and foremost, it is the pencil that plays the leading role as favoured drawing implement. His works are two dimensional experimental memorials: experimental in a sense that we do not recognize at first sight what we are supposed to remember. These are all constituents of a collective memory.
As a sculptor, BaJóTa creates constructions with the aim of variability, but for both artists interaction with the exhibition space is also of great importance. The initial form created in the studio can take another state due to the interaction generated by the changing environment. This phenomenon is different from those precedent-setting site-specific installations of the 20th century, where the minimal change coming from the incidental rebuilding on another site gives them a new visual look. They build and then dismantle, deconstruct their works in a new form. The art of BaJóTa is characterized by this sculptural starting position. He raises questions originating from reality, practicality and realism, which create a sculpturally exciting situation, but which will fade into meaninglessness intellectually. The starting points of his latest works originate from the above concept, but their source is personal memory. In the case of his work entitled ’Trap’, it is the simple concept of themouse trap made from a fruit jar and a half walnut-shell back in his homeland, Transylvania. Regarding form, he investigates the relations between the clean factual minimal and the organic. Behind the serious sculptural goals, there is irony, humour and playfulness hidden at all times.