Pictures on the Wall

15. February 2023. – 24. March
MegnyitóOpening: February 14, 2023, 6:00 pm

The internal radiation of dark looming pictures in a glimmering space. The light is inadequate for us to see what is impossible to see by daylight.

The isolation of light in the rooms of a museum reduces our glances into soft distraction. This is the recognition that follows from the hiding of the pictures: I imagine I am recognising. Where recognition appears, hiding must have taken place beforehand. Recognition means solution and comfort while hiding creates tension. Recognition and hiding – two conclusions operating actively together.

We do not have the opportunity here to analyse the pictures in a traditional way, but it does not seem to be necessary either. Failing to identify a picture exactly will result in a loss of history – the loss of the personal history of the painting. In the dim light the historic existence of the pictures is obscured, the role they play in art history becomes unclear. The entry of the painting into the dark is our attempt to win space.

I approach the picture as an object – as an indication of its existence. Thus the picture as an object and the painting made of it is a still-life. Space doubled this way becomes a painting in the painting. The picture depicts a picture, the picture identifies with the picture – it is about itself. The painting enters its own personal history.

However, this is not the simple formula of looking into a mirror. Here the picture is about what we see in it, that is, the receding light in the distance resembles a similar situation to a light beam appearing on the dark canvas, a glittering surface on a painting, or the gleam of rough paint surfaces.

Light itself is the relationship between a picture in a glimmering space and a camera, however the darkness of the pictures registers not intactness or the state of the apparatus one moment before operation, but a kind of dimming of illumination.

This lack of light is like a pencilled note on the margin – a possibility for those who can read between the lines, the essence, the place of hidden information. The message of the picture formulated once will be reinterpreted, redeveloped in the dark. Every painting has its own light, as it has its own innate darkness as well. The darkness of an overexposed film is interesting because it is a consequence of too much light. The ideal light hitting upon the idea. This is the photosynthesis of the picture.

I embrace centuries with my eyes in space reduced to a simple sentence. Suddenly the pictures have become my age. The common denominator of moment and whole in the given moment.

Gábor Ősz