Kopin Katalin (szerk.): Jel - Tranzit. Bartl József kiállítása. Művészetmalom, Szentendre. 2012. november 23 - 2013. január 27. (Szentendre, 2012)
I SIGN-TRANSIT | ON JÓZSEF BARTL'S ART | 'To leave a sign of our existence and fall... The explanation is hidden in our being and these signs' Béla Kondor József Bartl's art evolved in the most controversial, polyphonic and polemical period of Hungarian art history, in the 1950s and 60s. Consequently, he took his first steps for orientation, searched for his points of reference and defined his principles of value in the party-state system of this period, which pursued an unsettled, despotic, totalitarian cultural policy impregnated with political ideology. Perhaps the chasm between reality and appearance was the widest in this era. Official art and the 'second public sphere' were definitely separated. Due to his motivation, chosen masters and intellectual mentors (Endre Bálint, Dezső Korniss), his points of orientation, creative environment (European School, the Old Colony of Artists of Szentendre), friends (János Major, György Kovásznai) and some common exhibitions with the Zugló Circle (New endeavours 1966) and the representatives of the neo-avantgarde (Studio '66), József Bartl was linked to the progressive artists of the era, the vanguard artists emerging in the 1960s. However, we cannot find him among the members of the IPARTERV (Industrial Plan) generation or the self-organised groups of neo-avantgarde (Studio '66). His art was not influenced by the progressive trends of the era, including gesture painting, abstract expressionism, op art, surnaturalism, pop art, hyperrealism and informel. Regarding his tone, pictorial style, he has never been openly against the official canon. Fierce attitude and radicalism are foreign to his nature. Bartl can rather be characterised as an artist looking for his own ways quietly, retreated into his private sphere. He has been consistently building his unique oeuvre based on the Szentendre traditions. In the middle of the 1960s, his art turned towards the 'emblematic' picture building method represented by Dezső Korniss and Endre Bálint. From the early 1960s, his lyrical landscapes and cityscapes, which are related to Soroksár and bear the marks of the heritage of post-impressionism, had been replaced by geometrical compositions by the end of the decade, in which folk motifs stylising real elements appear as sign-symbols. Bartl's change of style did not happen overnight, however, it was decisively influenced by the fact that he was selected to the Old Colony of Artists of Szentendre in 1972. The change was a result of a long maturation process, a gradual separation from the sscenery, several signs of which can be discovered already in his early works. The road he had found proved to be viable. Although the periods of his oeuvre are easy to separate, all his works are considered to be homogeneous and part of the same intellectual realm. The range of works based on clearly definable aesthetic art philosophical parameters, the merging of signs and symbols drawn from folk art, which can be considered as his trademarks, with geometrical structures facilitated the integration of his life-work into the conception of Szentendre art. Not only did he renew the Szentendre traditions, but he also ensured coherent continuity for their survival. This kind of pictorial vision was immune to any attack by political authority, but it did not content itself with the compulsorily dictated and required, short-sighted creative attitude, the empty post-impressionist clichés and the stylistic and thematic requirements of socialist realism. Bartl's art represented, suggested and expressed a style very different from the 'official spirit of the era'. Nevertheless, his paintings were exhibited at official exhibition halls (Art Hall, 1980), and he was not discriminated against when it came to state purchases. In the 1990s, his oeuvre was discovered both by the art trade and private art collectors. Today, his works can be found in Hungarian state art collections (Ferenczy Museum, Hungarian National Gallery, Damjanich Museum of Szolnok, Déri Museum of Debrecen, etc.), in several foreign collections, and they regularly appear at auctions. The exhibition catalogue presents the development of the painter's oeuvre and highlights the logic uniting the individual periods and groups of works. The effect of Bartl's relationship with his friends and masters on his oeuvre, the controversies, inconsistencies of the cultural policy of the era, the penetrability between the categories of the three Ts' (a proverbial abbreviation of three Hungarian words beginning with T and meaning 'banned', 'tolerated', and 'supported') are analysed. Katalin Kopin art historian 17
