The Hegyvidék Gallery, in cooperation with the Várfok Gallery, is organizing a large-scale jubilee exhibition to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the birth of László Mulasics (1954-2001). Since the sudden death of Mulasics, Várfok Gallery has regularly organised exhibitions focusing on and exploring specific periods.
This year, the anniversary will be celebrated in an unusual way, with two venues at the same time. The Mountaintop Gallery will focus on the painter’s early works from the 1980s, while the Castle Hill Gallery will focus on his work from the 1990s and early 2000s.
László Mulasics was a major figure on the Hungarian scene of the 1980s and 1990s, whose career began in the mid-1980s, his first works being figurative compositions defined by violent gestures. In 1986, he abandoned figuration in a sharp shift, geometry began to take over, and his multifaceted experiments with materials led him in 1987 to the ancient wax technique of encaustic.
Over time, the art of creating with heated wax has become synonymous with his name, and has become his master. The pseudo-maps, floor plans and archaic buildings of the 1980s were replaced in the 1990s by art historical quotations – hunting dogs, griffins – physical diagrams, astronomical instruments and charts.
The treatment of motifs in the second half of the 1990s bears the legacy of Pattern and Decoration, while the writings and theoretical research that appear in the paintings move towards conceptual art.
The vivid colours of the last years, the revival of floral ornamentation mixed with scientific diagrams or more geometric structures, show the beginning of a new era, which was split by the artist’s early death.