When the enthusiastic lady caretaker at the Paks Gallery unexpectedly bustled us into a side-wing – saying the children will like all the young break-dancers, skateboarders in jogging suits – and we were surprised to find out that all this was no other than Géza Perneczky’s Extreme Sport exhibition. One of our most original art critics has always toyed with the idea of creating – mainly conceptually initiated – artistic creations, but believe me, if those stamps weren’t there that serve as a personal sign, then I would have been certain it was the year-ending exhibition of a drawing class. It was with a similarly ambivalent feeling that I stepped into the Knoll Gallery: the paintings covered with toy figures are very successful with the smaller members of my family, but what if a professor from the painting faculty of the Academy of Arts is causing me difficult moments with his most recent works. My fears, luckily, were unfounded, and from now on I will be serious.
The subjects of the thirteen exhibited oil paintings are dogs, McDonald’s toy figures, teddy bears, dinosaurs, but there was also an elephant, a hippo, a cat and a cow, too. With the exception of a few – like, for example, Pici bocik a bociszőrőn [tiny cows on the cow hair], which is really a nice parody in the style of 19th century landscape pictures, or the picture entitled Két kutya ellenfényben [two dogs in the back-light] – these works, at first glance seem to be still-life works. The use of space in the pictures follows the rules of classical perspective, closed box-like, most of the time the background conjures up Károlyi’s earlier sensual monochrome works, while in the foreground the use of strong complementary colours is frequent (stripy towel, chequered bedcover). In the place of the objects usually appearing in still-life paintings (flowers, fruit, food) there is, however, a special, figurative group of objects: the children’s toys mentioned earlier. Though there the toys are in a sort of unique interaction with one another, not concrete, just a sort of referral (”Hi, Pikachu!”), as if they were the players of scenes directed by the fantasy of children. So they are special genre pictures that show the enlivened fairytale events of the everyday ”lives” of furry animal toys (Kutyavilág [Dog-World] IV-V-VI.). The paintings balance finely in the border situation between still-life and genre pictures: while the narrative is completely missing (these are not fairytale book illustrations!), the positions and virtual relations taken by the tiny animals are still able to conjure up a magical world full of life for us.
And so that the pictures still do not suffocate in banal kitsch there are also some alienating elements. For me these seem ironic, but
they are also linked to the artist’s earlier works – here I am thinking of the paintings built up of flat planes painted ”above” each other, with
a minimum of shift. On the surface of two of the exhibited pieces there is the motif of paint-roller-applied flower patterns favoured by
house painters, covering the depicted ”nice, merry thing” as a veil (Mr. Maci Mucly és tsai) [Mr. Maci Mucly & company.], and at the
same time denoting that originally the artist approaches painting from the direction of the theory of art and philosophy. There is still
another alien element that penetrates the virtual life of the toys: a long eared, sad head with a real doggy-glassy gaze. Lifeless, just like
hunting trophies. The victim of a grown-up’s game.
The playful cheer is mixed with classic still-life shadow. Memento mori – says the dog.