The Institute of Contemporary Art is organizing an exhibition featuring a selection of works from Kim Corbisier’s oeuvre as a highlight of the institution’s exhibition season this year. The life of the Belgian-Hungarian painter, who died tragically young, was connected to Dunaújváros and the nearby small town of Nagyvenyim from her elementary school years through high school. Her talent was already evident during her high school studies, and her former art teacher, István Rohonczi, enthusiastically took her under his wing (Rohonczi paved the way for artists such as Tamás Kaszás and Tibor Horváth in Dunaújváros, and has been a member of the ICA-D board of trustees for decades).
The threads of her life story lead not only professionally but also personally to Dunaújváros; they run through the city. Many people here have memories of the artist, but until now, rural audiences have had little opportunity to encounter Kim Corbisier’s works in exhibition spaces. among which the 2014 exhibition entitled Fészek (Nest) by the Pepper Art Project at the Intercisa Museum in Dunaújváros (curated by Nóra Hanka) stands out. This institution presented a smaller selection, which was a remarkable success among the local audience.
The Kim Corbisier exhibition, organized in collaboration between ICA-D and 11_11 Gallery, is another important addition to the series of events showcasing the artist’s work and introducing it to a wider audience. Following several exhibitions in foreign cities (Berlin, Brussels, Marseille) and several exhibitions in the capital, this exhibition is aimed at audiences in Dunaújváros and the surrounding region, and aims to play an active role in positioning Kim Corbisier’s unique oeuvre in a manner befitting its significance.
After graduating from the University of Fine Arts as a student of András Halász, Kim Corbisier became a star of her generation. In addition to her career as a painter and video artist, the film I am not your friend, directed by György Pálfi, in which she played a leading role, was invited to one of Europe’s largest film festivals, Karlovy Vary. She has received numerous awards, including the Strabag Art Award “recognition award” for her artistic achievements.
Following her solo exhibition Corbisier, curated by Zsolt Kozma and held at the Inda Gallery in 2019, the 11_11 Gallery, in collaboration with the Starke Foundation in Berlin, the Inda Gallery, and other partners, began to raise the artist’s profile in Hungary and Europe. In 2021, her works were exhibited at the Lion’s Palace in Grunewald, Berlin.
In 2022, three paintings by Kim Corbisier were added to Hungary’s most significant public collections: two paintings to the Ludwig Museum in Budapest and one to the contemporary collection of the Hungarian National Gallery / Museum of Fine Arts. One of the works was presented at the Ludwig Museum in the exhibition Local Value – New Acquisitions. Thanks to the cooperation between the institutions, both works are now on display in Dunaújváros.
In 2022, film director Erika Kapronczai made a documentary about Corbisier’s life. The film was also screened at the Liszt Institute in Brussels, followed by an exhibition of selected works by Kim. In 2023, following Erika Kapronczai’s curatorial work, a large-scale exhibition was held at the aqb Project Space in Budapest, which was Corbisier’s largest exhibition to date.
The exhibition in Dunaújváros, organized in collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary Art and the 11_11 Gallery, is delicate in terms of its temporality, but presents a curatorial selection from an oeuvre of exceptional quality, which revolves around everyday urban situations and introduces the viewer to brilliant and unsettlingly beautiful variations on the theme of gaps and unfilled spaces. These works capture the sensitive web of everyday life, the fleeting moments of passing; they make visible what pulsates day after day, creating the illusion of permanence, what seeps away and permeates, comes together and falls apart, what arrives home and vanishes.