2023.05.19. – 06.09.
Tér-Kép Gallery (Budapest I. Krisztina krt. 83-85)
Opening: 2023.05.18. 18.00
The newest works of SI-LA-GI are rooted in new artistic practices that appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, during which art has gradually shifted from creating objects to prioritizing thoughts.
SI-LA-GI immigrated to Sweden in 1966, completing his academic studies in Stockholm after his sophomore year at the Budapest Secondary School of Visual Arts. He traveled extensively, participating in the international art world, while practicing with Tibetan Buddhist masters for more than 50 years by now, translating points of views, personal realizations to a contemporary language.
This kind of conceptual painting, with the Buddhist point of view flowing through, is reduced, aims for minimalism, but still has a very definitive visuality. His paintings done with ink rollers and paint sprayers, his simple texts written in neutral patterns, he constantly turns to existential philosophical questions. An unremarkable speck of dust in the shell that generates thoughts. His paintings are the bearing surfaces of playful thought experiments meant for free usage for those who are sensitive to them. He connects with those who accept it, and this does not require deeper knowledge of Buddhism, philosophy or foreign languages, it’s only a mindful passing of time in the mirage that we call reality.
The exhibition is held both in an actual (Tér-Kép Gallery 1016 Budapest, Krisztina Krt. 83-85.) and a virtual exhibition space.
The exhibition organized in the space at Krisztina Square is a compilation of SI-LA-GI’s paintings of the past few years and the ceramic sculptures of his wife, Zsuzsanna Drölma Kovács. As their relationship with Buddhism comes from the same roots, but they practiced different types of the religion, so does their artistic expression has its similar roots, but their form of expression is significantly different.
It is a very sensitive gesture that we are shown the works of his wife Zsuzsa, who passed away three years ago, among the works that consider conditions of existence. The artworks exhibited here are in constant dialogue with each other and they mean a direct connection with the works presented at the virtual exhibition.
And the 2600-year-old philosophy, which is based on the recognition of phenomena, and the elimination of the illusion caused by the misleading mixture of these phenomena, gets a special interpretation in a virtual space. If phenomena only have real limits in the actual world, what could the conditions of existence be? The paintings placed in the virtual (but actually really existing) exhibition space examine the subject of reality and virtuality although their creation was not induced by this intention. This is a theme deserving of further contemplation and consideration in the discourse surrounding Artificial Intelligence.
Curator: Balázs Fodor