Csontó Lajos - Verba Andrea szerk.: Csontó Lajos: Munkák (PMMI kiadványai - Kiállítási katalógusok 16. Pest Megyei Múzeumok Igazgatósága, Szentendre, 2005)

A változás állandósága

THE PERMANENCE OF CHANGE Although Lajos Csontó is a contemporary artist, in his works he is regularly concerned by the problem of the power and mystical force of the image. Moreover, the connection to tradition, traditional representation and the secession from it is the constant theme of his works. As a result, his works are characterized by the permanent temptation of cultural quotation marks filled with a metaphoric content. As a consequence, from the aspect of contemporary art Csontó's works can be also accused of being iconoclastic, since the main characteristics of the iconoclastic behaviour of contemporary art - elements of which have appeared earlier but have become dominant by now - include linking images to other images, their repetition, remix, reproduction, evocation, parody, allusions, appropriation and the use of hypertext. IMAGE AND TEXT It is perhaps subconscious, but the unity of image and text is also linked to the early tradition. The joint presence of the visual and the verbal has been a dominant feature of his works from the start, where not only the content but also the typography of the inscriptions is determining. In his earlier works 11997-20001 we can read a text made of letters imitating the fonts of a typewriter from the 1970s (And Yet and Still Not; God Came to My Mind; My God; False Fidelity; I Understand Everything, Dad}, then in the photos presented at the Vintage Gallery in 2002 images seem to appear on TVscreens, on which the letters of epitaphs carved into stone form the text (dear god; homeless fidelity; neat patience; sweet sister, etc.} The typography of the texts in his pictures about the family is peculiar. The typography of the texts entitled "If You Think So, Say It/If You Think So, Kill " is again different. At the current exhibition the design of "Forging Man " is typical of street neon signs. But the meaning of these texts is much more important than their typography. These are sometimes witty statements It don't want to die without having felt good for the rest of my life} or contain simple wisdom [Responsibility is also a matter of habit}. But often, only a single word or expression is part of the work [patience, pity, rule, power, friendly hand, etc.} Of these, the word "god" [god came to my mind; My God-with a sponge brain; My God-with ship, Dear God}, fidelity [false fidelity, homeless fidelity} and patience appear most often on various contexts. At the same time, it is apparent that these inscriptions often present the dichotomy and contradiction in man, for example: andyet-andstill not; always everything never nothing; I'm good and bad, too; I guard my gullibility forever/I carry my gullibility forever; if you think so, say it/if you think so, kill; homeless fidelity, etc. At the current exhibition "Forging Man" can be read as a neon sign, while in the work "Music is Beautiful" the words appearing one after the other on one of the legs read as "Good life awaits you". The texts also prove Csontó's inclination to approach the world from a metaphysical and moral aspect, without becoming affected or tieatrical. Of course, the images are also proofs to this. In the video installation "Music is Beautiful", which is projected onto curtains, the face of the artist transforms into the face of Jesus, Hitler or a chocolate Easter bunny. Each of these images is the characteristic embodiment of an idea, a worldview [good, evil, popular kitschl, symbolizing the extreme cases of the alternatives hidden in man simultaneously. On one of his hands, there's a stigma, in the other there are numerous objects with biblical allusions. On one of his legs the sentence "Good life awaits you " can be read, the other keeps changing into the tail of a fish, the leg of a dog or a pig, loaded with cultural historical allusions, too. THE SELF AND THE WORLD It is conspicuous that in Csontó's oeuvre, especially his video works, we can often simultaneously witness the representation of one or more people and self-representation. Since he is present in nearly all of his works, while constantly transforming into someone else, he is both an egocentric and community artist at the same time. In his works he maintains a continuous relationship with his surroundings, the past, and lives in a permanent symbiosis with them. For example, in his video work "I Guard My Gullibility Forever" his own face and the faces of acquaintances and media personalities transform into each other. In the video installation "Music Is Beautiful" past and present merge continuously into each other. "Forging Man" consists of a neon sign and a video, in which the balls reappearing in the waterfall are the metaphors of human relationships, where we keep approaching each other and becoming distant again, but it also represents the high and low points of the individual's life, the permanence of change. His lambda prints created for the anniversary exhibition of the Vajda Lajos Studio merit special attention even among his transforming works. In these, he identifies with some Vajda artists and transforms into Péter Bereznay, Imre Bukta, Agnes Ungar, Laca fe Lugossy, István ef Zámbó, Szabolcs Mátrai, István Nánássy [20021 etc. Apparently it is not a big deal to copy someone, although according to Aristotle, imitation is the foundation of art. "Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood (...) and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. " Csontó attempts to identify with the models not only in his appearance and clothes but also "catches" a situation or movement that is characteristic of the person. Through imitation he truly represents the people he presents, that is, he makes them present, especially through the imitated facial expression. Most of the portraits reflect both the mentality and the personality of the model, at the same time, because of the empathie approach, the traits of their environment also appear. After lengthy research and experiments, psychologist Robert Zajonc found that the face does not only express internal feelings, the process also works in the opposite direction. Due to empathy, one imitates the facial expression of the other, the movement of facial muscles, and this influences his mood. "The emphatic process can be traced back to the motoric function of the face and the subjective sensation of the state of feelings deriving from it. The person who has sympathy for the other person is able to comprehend the state of the other based on his subjective experience. And to create this subjective experience nothing else is necessary but the appropriate facial expression. " Of course, as reception and interpretation are activities inseparable form each other, they are mutually and completely dependent on each other. According to Nelson Goodman, we never represent anything completely devoid of its characteristics or with all of its characteristics. A picture never merely represents X but represents him as a man, represents X in its state as a mountain, or represents the fact that X exists as a melon. Beyond this fact, which is true for all kinds of representation, Csontó's works are strongly characterized by the desire to present the personality of the "model" and at the same time to reveal his own self, the demand for identification and distance, as a result, his works are quotation marks, since they evoke but also maintain a distance [he "puts" the represented between quotation marks}. Csontó turns to the common cultural memory for the people he evokes from the past, while with the same gesture he reinforces the position of his contemporaries in the cultural memory of the descendants. According to Jan Assman, when the departed person lives on in the memory of posterity, it is an act of evocation, which is due to the determined will of the group not to let the person to fall prey to oblivion but to keep him in the alive in the community and take him along to the future. According to Assman, cultural memory has its special carriers, for example, shamans, bards, priests, scientists, scribes and artists, that is, those entitled by knowledge. As an artist, Csontó is a mediator of this cultural memory, who in the meantime reflects on his own activity and on the permanence of change. Andrea Bord ács