World-models

What does the notion of the studio mean today? Is it the locus of artistic creativity, the most natural environment for experimenting and for the creative process? The mysterious place of the creation of the WORK? A refuge and a stage for private rites and rituals? A space consecrated by the artist’s presence, and the place of his or her everyday life at the same time? A shell that has grown inseparable from its dweller?

The possible interpretations and concepts range from those of the late Renaissance and Dutch painting to Romanticism, to the avant-garde movements of the first decades of the 20th century, and to the most recent gestures of the “post-studio” age, when these gestures retake the possession of the studio, and reinterpret or extend its space. Obviously, this exhibition at the Hungarian National Gallery cannot endeavour to present all of these concepts and interpretations. Meanwhile, as the first in a series of thematic exhibitions of works in the Contemporary Collection, it attempts to explore the history of this locus, this topos of art history from the 1960s to the present day.

We do not venture to “reveal” or map every aspect of the common function of the private living space and the individual artistic universe. Some of them brief and some more elaborate, our case studies present examples to show the diversity of ways in which the medium is adjusted to the artist’s personal attitude and his or her strong conceptual basis, and also to demonstrate the variety of the resulting works.