In his works, Márton Dés (b. 1987) transposes reality playfully and sociographically, sometimes in the form of painted pictorial representations, sometimes in the form of textual drawings. In his works, he captures with childlike wonder the contradictory, bizarre, and mundane phenomena of our lives, which are so familiar to us that we pass them by unnoticed. He documents, collects and reveals. Alongside the visual representation, texts often appear in the pictorial space, various visual clichés and humorous scenes blur the boundaries of everyday events and phenomena.
The images in IDAY! do not reflect the mood of anticipation that precedes grand journeys, weddings or significant anniversaries. It is the simplicity and attention to detail of waiting in the schoolroom for the big V to appear on the blackboard and a new era to begin.1 We recall the idyllic scenes of summer as almost chilling – a time when this season was one with the carefree months between two school years.
We cherish the memory of Lake Balaton, which seemed even deeper then, less of the majestic body of water, the dangerous dive or a powerful wave, and more of the time spent on the shore, scanning the landscape and hearing the summer’s hits. It’s when we read the ingredients of a product on the packaging, when we observe people we don’t know at first sight, when we observe seemingly uninteresting everyday scenes with a keener eye than usual, when we do something with them – just like Márton Dés.
The artist uses as sources his own photographs, illustrations from travel guides, reproductions of old tourist publications and magazines. He mixes the visual world of these with the objects, inscriptions and texts that surround us. These texts are reminiscent of the lyrics of hip-hop and rap songs, with a few letter changes, diverted in meaning. The label of a soft drink or an advertisement for a medicine remain in our memories as markers of an era. Advertising, ingredient lists, street signs and book covers navigate us through space and time. Dés’ individual way of depicting his images draws on the relationship between these layers of memory and the subjects of his observations.
Dés’ anthropological approach allows us to see on the images objects of use and consumption, fragments that seem uninteresting, the backdrops of our everyday lives. At first glance, the images thus appear visually disorganised, their content disintegrating. But on closer observation, we see mosaics of our “noisy” and stimulating consumer reality. The familiar elements open up the possibility of re-reading familiar phenomena for the viewer.
Hungarian audiences know Márton Dés, primarily for his witty text- and drawing-based works on paper, so IDAY! is a transition into summer, and into Márton Dés’ more formally painterly and more lyrical approach.
In primary school there is a Hungarian tradition for the last week of the school year. The students write the word HOLIDAY! backwards on the board day by day, letter by letter, till the last day of the school year.