The eternal dilemma of abstraction is, in fact, the dilemma of minimalism. How simple and essential a painting can be. At the same time, I’m also intrigued by how chaotic and sprawling a painting can be. Several dilemmas, because obviously you have to avoid the two poles extinguishing each other, you have to somehow vitalize the “almost nothing” and the “prolific” at the same time. I think some of the contemporary abstract painters I like the most have similar dilemmas: Stanley Whitney, Beat Zoderer, Daniel Buren, Peter Halley, Sean Scully, Dillwyn Smith, Imi Knoebel, Heimo Zobernig, Zsigmond Károlyi all created their abstract paintings and works by employing a radically reduced visual language, that kept being questioned and explored in a heterogenous, playful way. There is no way out of this labyrinth, this labyrinth is abstract painting itself.
Tamás Jovanovics