Contrasts

OSAS has been organising thematic exhibitions for many years in the Vasarely Museum in accordance with the genius loci and the artistic stance professed by its members. It selects works of concrete and structural art using geometric forms, placing them in an international context whenever possible. This time the exhibition is built around the thus far unsettled concepts of abstract and concrete works of art.

The present exhibition includes two units contrasted with each other in their entirety and details. One displays small geometric and occasionally embossed screen prints executed with brilliant technical skill, selected from the jubilee portfolio of Fanal, a graphic art publisher in Basel, while the embossed small graphic art works are from the Lafranca paper atelier, formerly based in Locarno. These works are accompanied by some sheets selected from Tamás Konok’s collection of graphic works and documents, including a graphic type photograph by Lucien Hervé as well as drawings and prints by Tapies, Anna Mark and Jeno Barcsay. The objective of this part of the exhibition is to draw attention to the graphic genres that have been sidelined in Hungarian art over the last 30 years.

The mainly large-scale abstract pictures by four young Hungarian artists are mounted on the other side: the stark rhythm of black-and-white lines are juxtaposed with gestures of colour lines and patches while streams of forms created by black reliefs like the notes on sheets of music appears against pictures with rich and static cumulations of material. The participant artists whose selected works on display could well pass for four independent exhibitions were not chosen by just one curator but by four members of OSAS.