Beke László (szerk.): Instruktiv + Inter + Konkret. Művészet Malom Szentendre, 21. November - 26. Januar 2015 (Sankt Augustin, 2014)
1. Vorwort WOW
Constructive + inter + Concrete Explanation: Our exhibition belongs to the historical tradition that commences with Russian/Soviet Constructivism and its related tendencies (“Realism”, Productivism, Futurism, Rayonism), Geometric Abstraction, arching over into the Concrete Art founded by Max Bill, and branching into various newer tendencies. The “inter” naturally refers to the international quality, as well as to intermediality, interactivity, interface, and in general, every connective notion of a positive character. The “+” (‘cross’) symbol between the words calls into attention one of the principle ensembles of artworks of Heinz Kasper, who is one of the curators who conceived the exhibition - which visualises the golden section, or the Fibonacci Number, with the aid of ‘pluses’ and ‘minuses’. Naturally, the cross also means much more, and is, among others, a salute to Kazimir Malevich, but to the religious man is also the worship of God. Some of the paintings and objects of Kasper, who is perhaps the most conceptual, i.e., the most philosophical of the exhibiting artists, are composed of a series of ideas or combinations of letters - in his search for Truth (Wahrheit) he satisfies his metaphysical interest, while he makes his sociological sensibility known with the notion of “intelligibility”, which is so hard to translate into Hungarian. In a certain sense, Beppe Bonetti’s notion of “meta-rationality” also formulates a similar philosophical level, while engaging with the visualisation of the disintegrating Whole. If we take as our point of departure the fact that originally, Concrete Art did not allow for any kind of symbolic or behind-the-scenes meaning, and is “satisfied” with the tautological concrete aspect of “noumenon” - “Ding an sich”, then perhaps it is Andre van Lier, with his folded geometric objects, and Ingo Glass, with his most concrete constructions indicating three foundation levels, or István Haász, with his geometric reliefs, and János Fajó, with his hard-edge formed, colourful objects, who stand closest to this objective. Fajó, who professes to be the pursuer of Lajos Kassák, constitutes the bridging link to the classical Hungarian Constructivist painter. Viktor Hűlik harkens back to geometric abstraction, at the same time composing systematic series and creating variational possibilities with moveability. A further systematic artist is found in the personage of Hellmut Bruch, who realises Minimalist line-constructions with light. Ákos Matzon represents a softer, more rhythmic geometric abstraction, reducing three dimensions into planar reliefs, with his palette inclined toward black-white-and-grey harmonies. Among the exhibiting artists, we can hardly find anyone who is not (or not yet) a member of the international MADI group. MADI = Movement, Abstraction, Dynamism, Intuition - in realising these principles, perhaps it is János Szász SAXON who works the most intensively, and who together with his wife, Zsuzsa Dárdai, established the Hungarian section of the movement. He carried the variation theory of mathematics and geometry into the direction of playfulness with his “poly-dimensional” theory and praxis. Working in a similar vein is István Ézsiás, who with his “interdisciplinary” objects and colourful constructions, shakes up austere Concretism. I consider the oeuvre of Jürgen Blum Kwiatkowski, one of the doyens of German Concretism, an especially individual variation on the scale of Constructivism-Concretism; he does not balk at implementing functional tasks or constructing philosophical monuments. Falling into the same category are the experiments of Péter Paizs, who, with scientific devices, evo20
