From A to B through C

The title From A to B through C may offer various possibles for interpretation. It might suggest a journey, or – with its abstract, mathematical reference – the concept of a journey. It can be physical or virtual, in space or in time.

A journey the artist takes for the realization of an artwork or project, from the moment the idea is born till the presentation in a gallery space. For the concept to materialize, for a goal to be reached, for achieving recognition.

A journey full of obstacles, where not one path leads straight to the destination. Nowadays in the global scene artists, works and exhibitions travel the world, which has become a custom for both institutional and private practices. It is not uncommon to cross the globe for a fair or biennial, or for artists to work in several countries at the time.

Moreover, the title is a lingual game that refers to the name of the space that hosts the exhibition: acb Gallery represents progressive artists working in various fields of fine art, with no restrictions in media or style. They share a critical and innovative, forward thinking attitude in their artistic practices.

Regardless of the medium(s) they work in, they try to find answers for the most current questions of their own genre. When the idea of this international group exhibition occured, I had those artists in mind who have recently not, or not at all shown in Hungary before, though their creative approaches, both in concept and in attitude, reflect the spirit of acb Gallery’s.

Matt Bryans uses newspaper cuttings as his raw material for large-scale collages and installations. Through labor-intensive processes he creates poetic compositions that question the boundaries of photographic art by using the images both as documents and as objects.

Aaron van Erp’s colorful paintings depict objects and scenes from the world around us, in bare desert-like landscapes or huge empty interiors. He is one of the foremost exponents of a younger generation of painters who are working in the wake of Neo-Expressionism in Europe.

Joep van Liefland is a Dutch multimedia artist who works in painting, drawing, video, and guerilla art. His works refer to the media culture by using and deconstructing the materials it is represented in, like the large silkscreens depicting serial commodities of media storage exhibited here.

Viktor Pivovarov is one of the most important artists of the so-called “Moscow conceptual romanticism”. Starting his carreer in the period of socialist realism Pivovarov together with Ilya Kabakov and Erik Bulatov created a visual language of conceptual painting which became a new Soviet visual aesthetic. His paintings and drawings, in spite of his conceptual background, also use the formal and technical utensils of traditional painting.

Pavel Pepperstein’s work is a continuation of the tradition started by the Moscow Conceptual School which is mostly apparent in the style of his paintings and drawings. His subjects are related to globalization, the colonization of Russia, capitalism, ecological indifference and the preservation of Russia’s cultural heritage.

Tanya Rumpff