The art of Róbert Várady (1950, Budapest) is a kind of intellectual art. He is often inspired by existential questions that arise in philosophical and literary texts, as well as by current problems and results of scientific research. In his paintings, he translates the often elusive concepts of ontology and metaphysics, which are present in our everyday life, into the visible language of visuality, representing abstract phenomena in virtuoso visual metaphors.
This exhibition selects from the entire oeuvre of Várady’s, who joined the permanent artistic staff of the Várfok Gallery more than 20 years ago. This overarching organizational principle sheds light on themes that have long preoccupied the artist.
The title of the exhibition is borrowed from the American art critic Jonathan Crary. His book of the same title is about vision and its “historical construction”. Crary argues in his essay that viewing and visual reception have been replaced by practices and habits in which the visual spectacle no longer has any reference to the observer’s position in the ‘real’, optically perceived world. In each work, the artist’s gaze plays an important role, scanning the world like a camera. The viewer is presented with a subjective selection of works.
In Várady’s early works, abstraction and spatiality went hand in hand, and the Fractals series, which began in the 1990s and continues to this day. This series brings a new order and perspective to his artistic approach.
In his most recent works, he explores the boundaries between individual and collective memory, showing a similar fragmentation of pictorial space as in his interface series that defined his work in the 90’s and 00’s.
In the exhibition, visitors will have the opportunity to gain a new perspective of Róbert Várady’s oeuvre through key pieces and trends.