{"id":400070,"date":"2002-06-19T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-06-19T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/?p=400070"},"modified":"2002-06-19T22:00:00","modified_gmt":"2002-06-19T22:00:00","slug":"a-vesztohelyek-illata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/kritika\/a-vesztohelyek-illata\/","title":{"rendered":"The Scent of Scaffolds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Once\r\nI had the opportunity to have fun in a parlour. We were visiting the brothers\r\nand sisters of my grandmother in a tiny village in Baranya county – old\r\nladies in black headscarves, happy old man sneaking off to get wine from\r\nthe cellar carved out of the rock, dogs, cats, grunting pigs, in other\r\nwords the unrepeatable experience of \u201dthe small girl from the city\r\nin the country for the first time\u201d – and from the cool kitchen I\r\ntrod carefully into the room. It was dark, the inimitable mixture of the\r\nsmell of must and mouse, and at the back there was a lonely double bed\r\nwith huge pillows, piled high with duvets covered with a beautifully embroidered\r\ncounterpane. I had felt such pure please as when I threw myself onto the\r\ntop of the pile and sank into the cool, soft, inviting nothing. My mother’s\r\nstrict call ordered me out of the floundering: it was only then that I\r\nrealised that I had breached an up till then, unknown taboo. The parlour\r\nis not for using everyday – or playing in – instead it is a place that\r\nshows how rich the inhabitants are, and due to this the museum-like cemetery\r\nof valuable and treasured objects. You can only be born and die here,\r\n\u201dfree\u201d access is only permitted during important family and\r\nreligious events. It is from this hermetic seal that the two characteristics\r\nof the parlour originate: on the one hand due to the lack of the signs\r\nof everyday existence it is lifeless<\/i>, sterile<\/i> and afunctionally\r\nempty<\/i>, and on the other hand (in connection with this) it provides\r\na sacred<\/i> space to live the special moments of life in.<\/p>\r\n

These\r\ncharacteristics are those – beside the title of the exhibition – that\r\ndefine the 18 paintings by Attila Sz\u0171cs exhibited in the Church\r\nSquare of the Kiscelli Museum. These are interiors the object world of\r\nwhich is exceptionally reduced: beds, armchairs, curtains, blinds, table,\r\nchair, lights, and occasionally some supplementary elements. The picture\r\nis placed in still further shadow by the exhibition venue, the religious\r\n(holy) character of its original function has been retained to a great\r\ndegree. Few exhibiting artists make use of the possibility in this solemn\r\natmosphere, an exception to this is Attila Sz\u0171cs, he really does\r\nplay with the sacredness in the space. The church square actually has\r\n– according to the present use – two apses. By turning the walled up entrance\r\nand the open (original) apse to each other in the place of the unidirectional\r\nreading Sz\u0171cs places the virtual picture of a special, closed capsule.\r\nAt the same time the two end points of this also illuminate the duality\r\nthat characterises the artist’s work: although he sees himself as a realist\r\npainter, his art is not without the features of metaphysical painting.<\/p>\r\n

At\r\none end point of the capsule (at the present entrance) is one of the emphasised\r\nmotifs of the artist, the bed. The process is characteristic of Sz\u0171cs’s\r\ncreating method, bringing to life the same theme, processing it from different\r\naspects, however, the analysis of this is not the purpose of this piece\r\nof writing. The common characteristic of these three paintings (virtual\r\ntriptych) is dramatisation taken to its extremes. Their central theme\r\nis a huge, white bed that is highlighted by one or more directed and artificial\r\nlight sources from the space around it, which space is free of any signs\r\nof real spatial relations. The cold whiteness of the neon lights make\r\nthe double beds into stages themselves; and in the foot-lights enigmatic\r\nstill-life elements occur, are given a leading role like a bunch of grapes\r\nor a fighter aircraft made of paper. The metaphysicality of the paintings,\r\ntheir timeless and symbolic connotations (the erotically shivering, womanly\r\nsoft grapes versus the subjugating, macho fighter plane) are further shaded\r\nby the strange shortenings and points of view – the bunch of grapes, for\r\nexample, is lying on a sagging \u201dbed\u201d that is similar to a cake\r\nslice.<\/p>\r\n

Attila\r\nSz\u0171cs has always been interested in the problem of sight, in the\r\noptical phenomenon that a precondition of a perfect picture is the joining\r\nof two different sights focussed by the two eyes, which, besdie this,\r\novercomes the problem of the fault coded into sight due to the blind spot\r\non the retina – that is the area covered by the optic nerve and so insensitive\r\nto light. We can observe the further thoughts of earlier interpretations\r\nof these two optical phenomenon on the \u201ddiptychs\u201d along the\r\nside walls. These four large sized pictures seem to be the successors\r\nof the stereoscopic pictures. The original stereoscopic pictures with\r\nthe placing next to each other of the different visual spaces seen by\r\nthe two eyes, have operated with the creation of the illusion of space,\r\nwhich Sz\u0171cs has changed so that the solving of the different dichotomies\r\nhidden in the picture pairs, that is the visual problems can be carried\r\nout, precisely due to the complex reflecting relationships or the unclear\r\nspace adaptation, on the conceptual plane. The two pictures entitled Shutters\r\nwith dark patches <\/i>and A room with yellow curtains and wallpaper\r\n<\/i>seem as if they were projecting two different views of the same space\r\n(room) next to each other, for example when beside the view of an empty\r\nroom filled with white light seeping through the gaps of the half closed\r\nshutters he places the picture of optical patches generated by the light\r\nfiltering acility of the shutters. What was earlier a contradiction within\r\nthe homogenous technique of the painting, an oval surface patch or deficiency,\r\nis now sharply separated from its environment (The inside of a room\r\nwith additional patches<\/i>), or is completely ruling it (Armchair\r\nwith a glimmering patch<\/i>).<\/p>\r\n

Natural\r\nand artificial light conditions and the relation between closed and opened\r\nspace is shown in eight small-sized pictures, which connect the following\r\nunits. On the one hand these paintings strengthen the viewers in their\r\nfeeling that the warm and safe closedness of their everyday living-space\r\nis only illusion: the spaces of the rooms are lit with neon light and\r\nthey have confused space conditions (Bed with three neon tubes and\r\na repainted door<\/i>), and they look just as sterile, freezing and empty\r\nas the conference rooms of the business world (Room with yellow suite<\/i>).\r\nOn the other hand, with a difficult system of covering and transparency\r\nSz\u0171cs expands space outside too, but the external world, the possibility\r\nof exit is always covered with a curtain, that is the realistic world\r\nof images is merged with the sacral and metaphoric iconographic tradition\r\nof the curtain (Light behind a curtain, Night from inside, Three neon\r\ntubes behind a curtain)<\/i>.<\/p>\r\n

People\r\ncannot enter the halted time of the interiors, only the presence of \u201dthe\r\nmost faithful partner\u201d or a trophy refers to their existence. The\r\ntwo live characters of the three large \u201danimal pictures\u201d (a\r\nGerman shepherd and a black dog) move like strangers in these spaces,\r\nand sometimes their presence just emphasises the fact that the space of\r\nthe picture falls onto picture planes contradicting each other. Beside\r\nthe confusing multiplanes there is also a surrealistic ambiguity (the\r\nappearance of a deer’s trophy with a Christmas tree in an unknown space)\r\n– and then we have not mentioned the facture or colours of the paintings,\r\nwhich emphasise the presence of illogical elements and coded ambiguities\r\nby moving the viewer’s eyes.<\/p>\r\n

At\r\nthe end of the capsule a \u201dtriptych\u201d is placed with a summarising\r\nmotif, which clearly shows how Attila Sz\u0171cs’s realistic and personal,\r\nsensual painting is connected with archetypal (or metaphorical, if you\r\nlike) levels. On the picture on the right hand side there are two double\r\nbeds with bedcovers with flower patterns, in a strangely zoomed field.\r\nThe beds, which look like beds in hotel rooms, are floating in a huge,\r\nempty space evoking the comforting beauty of nature and its artificial\r\nand humanised (comfortable) equivalent at the same time. In other words\r\nspring, rebirth, love, sex (\u201dthe bed then in this interpretation\r\nis a reference system, somehow as sexuality balances, in which case the\r\nhand is a fine animal \u201d A.Sz.), and the extreme development of this,\r\nthe unique and special point in everyone’s life, birth. The middle element\r\nis a cascading, corrugated, blood red curtain. Separates and connects:\r\npulsing desire and burning passion, on the other hand, bloody agony and\r\nflesh-splitting pain. On the left side there is – seemingly the odd one\r\nout in the exhibition, but now known in the works of the artist – one\r\nof his pictures that is \u201dpacked full\u201d of strange objects: a\r\nReconstructed Scaffold<\/i>. Wistful, reserved world of colours, stage-like\r\nspace, with two tiny, point-like light sources, a tap at the rear wall,\r\ncables, chair, ladder – all recognisable, everyday objects, which, however,\r\nall incompletely, unlinked float in a very dense moment. If there were\r\na start, the end is here. Not in bed, between pillows, but our own body\r\ndeserts us. And what remains after the unmistakable fall: silence. And\r\nthe scent of the scaffold in the parlour.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Once I had the opportunity to have fun in a parlour. We were visiting the brothers and sisters of my grandmother in a tiny village in Baranya county – old ladies in black headscarves, happy old man sneaking off to get wine from the cellar carved out of the rock, dogs, cats, grunting pigs, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":630070,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kritika"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}