Kiss Nagy András - Kalmár János (London, 1994)

András Kiss Nagy and János Kalmár by Terence Mullaly At a moment in history when in much of Europe the headlong rush of political events has swept aside limitations imposed upon the creative, the relevance of art must be asserted without equivocation. It is therefore a delight to have proved to us, as this exhibition does, that in Hungary human values have been kept alive. Equally rewarding is the evidence that what Kiss Nagy and Kalmár are doing extends the frontiers of awareness. András Kiss Nagy occupies a position at once lonely and triumphant. He is one of the very few medallists at work today about whose place in the history of art there is no doubt. Kiss Nagy will be regarded, along with one or two others, such as the Pole, Bronislaw Chromy, not simply as one of the greatest of 20th century medallists, but as one who has created images that as long as man is able to respond will touch the human heart. This has over the years, in exhibitions in Budapest, going back to 1963, at the Sopron Medal Biennale, at successive FIDEM Congresses, and before in Great Britain, as in the exhibition of 'Modern Hungarian Medals', sponsored by the British Art Medal Society, and the exhibition of Kiss Nagy and János Kalmár held at the Glasgow City Museum and Art Gallery, both in 1984, become ever clearer. Now András Kiss Nagy's stature is placed beyond doubt by the present exhibition. Nor is it fortuitous that again in Britain the work of a much younger sculptor and medallist, János Kalmár, is being shown beside that of Kiss Nagy. Kalmár is one of the most brilliant and, also, inventive of younger Hungarian sculptors. Today in the FIDEM Exhibition at the British Museum, and in this exhibition, he is showing small pieces of sculpture not only far removed from conventional ideas as to what constitutes a medal, but diverging from the trends towards the representational at the moment so widespread. It would though be wrong to assume that Kalmár was retreating into the kind of esoteric world popular in the sixties and seventies in Western Europe and America. His work, like that of Kiss Nagy is pertinent to our current dilemmas. Kiss Nagy and Kalmár touch the mind and stir the emotions. In this exhibition it is clear Kiss Nagy has produced some of the most haunting reminders of man's humanity to be found in medallic art. Early works such as his almost unbearably poignant „At the Danube", of 1961, which is one of the great medals of the 20th century, and his „György Dózsa Medal", of 1961-64, with its direct symbolism, speak of the anguish of the human situation. He was then to go on with his „Metamorphoses Series" to achieve something few medallists have attempted, that is to make intelli­gible, if complex, statements about the borderlands between awareness and metaphysics. From such a point it in retrospect seems logical that, in the seventies, Kiss Nagy should with his „Pandora's Box" medals unite technical ingenuity, and some of the finest lettering on any modern medal, with intimations of ideas and feelings again usually beyond the scope of the medallist. That in more recent works, such as his „Copyist", of 1983, shown at the XIX HDEM Congress, in Florence, he should combine an immediately recognisable scene with the subtle exploration of the space within a room is an indication of his versatility. János Kalmár too moves from precise images, like his „The Staircase" and his „Head", a medal produced for the British Art Medal Society in 1984, to the abstract. A further crucial point where his work is concerned is that he ranges from medals to monumental sculpure. That both on a tiny scale and in large piees, such as his Memorial to Arnold Hauser in the Farkasrét Cemetery, in Budapest, of 1979, Kalmár strikes a balance between the cerebral and a direct, even voluptuous appeal to the senses, suggests the qualities of his work. Throughout the history of Hungarian sculpture there has been a tendency to echo what was happening elsewhere in the main­stream of European art: whether under Matthias Corvinus, in the 15th century, it was the introduction of an extraordinarily pure Renaissance style, or, around 1900, a reflection of what was happening in Vienna and Munich, influences have come from beyond the Hungarian lands. They have though in Hungary been given a distinctive character. It is the same with Kalmár. All his finest work displays rigorous simplification. Tired generalisations about what constitutes the avant garde are irrelevant when we consider his sculpture and medals. What is more such an impression would have been enhanced if drawings had been included in this exhibition. Kalmár has the rare ability in his work to suggest a feeling of inevitability usually associated with nature. As Hungary moves away from what was constricting and doctrinaire about art under Communism the achievement of Kiss Nagy and Kalmár is richly relevant. They assert man's ability to produce symbols sometimes directly related to specific human situations and emotions, while at others giving expression, in a more generalised way, to the age old urge to convey in art the lifeenhancing qualities of simple shapes. Kiss Nagy and Kalmár empha­sise both human values and the possibility of extending the scope and depth of man's reactions. At this moment to achieve these things is to reaffirm Hungary's place in Europe.

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