Wave, net, sand

The selection of works presented at acb Gallery’s summer exhibition was inspired by the season. The group show takes wave, a reoccurring topos of art as its conception, which as a motive, structure and physical phenomenon appears in several neo-avant-garde and contemporary works. The wave besides its evident association to water conveys the sense of movement, entropy, turmoil as an organic abstract surface and as optical interference. The motive of net, occurring in some of the works, on the other hand, stand as a metaphor for predictability and scientific, systematic order; the logic behind the design of moquito net or fishnet can be associated to it, as well as patterns of immaterial networks. The exhibition with its generational and medial diversity showcases the variety of the usages of these motives, as well as their interactions with each other.

The motives quoted in the title connect the works in different relations. The net, or grid is predominantly the tool of the already mentioned logical order, standardization, classification. In art historical context, Alberti’s or Dürer’s velo plays a role in spatial circumscription and in defining scale. This stands as a reference in Pauer’s grid which is either a backdrop of the surfaces of undulating water and sand, or the projection onto the plane. The sense of compositional order conveyed by the grid and the spatial effects of irregular forms as an optical paradox occurs on Katalin Nádor’s abstract photographs

Artists: Tibor Csiky, Máté Dobokay, Aranka Hübner, Károly Kismányoky, Áron Kútvölgyi-Szabó, Katalin Nádor, Gyula Pauer, Hajnalka Tarr, Tibor w. Horváth