The exhibition titled *Space monocrome* attempts to represent the expansion of the artwork as a space for both action and meditation. In this perhaps unusual compound term, the emphasis falls on the interactions of color tones with space — by no means contradictorily — within a broad spectrum of meanings that are at times more playful and at times more theoretical.
Monochrome painting is one of the most enigmatic genres in modern visual art. The term, of Greek origin, means “single-colored,” that is, in art, it is synonymous with a work painted in shades of the same color. It would be that simple. Even at its very origin, with Kazimir Malevich’s *The Fundamental Suprematist Element*: *The Square* (1913). According to the historical definition of monochrome painting, it is a movement within “post-painterly abstraction” that emphasizes the internal tonal values of homogeneous color surfaces; essentially, the dominance of color pushes the structural elements of composition into the background.
“Space monocrome” is fundamentally based on the central role of color and light, without pushing the structural elements of the composition (facture, texture, structure) into the background. The dimensions of luminous colors (black is also a color) come to the fore.
The “Space monocrome” exhibition features works by contemporary Hungarian artists — as well as guest artists from the Netherlands — who present distinctive segments of their significant, internationally recognized bodies of work, each resonating with the exhibition’s theme. Thus, we can view an exceptionally curated selection of works that explore the myriad connections between colors and material surfaces; this quasi-painterly dematerialization evokes a sense of space and can even convey a feeling of infinity. Monochromatic painting, often associated with minimalism and reductive tendencies, can — in a seemingly indifferent manner — be situated within a much broader system of relationships, placing its creator in a position that is both self-limiting and self-expanding. “The pleasure of the few and the many.”
Klára Hudra