Haraszty István (Hamilton AULICH ART Galéria, Budapest, 2010)

Lamelládé o Lamellation, 2009 vegyes technika O mixed media, 60 x 80 cm (Within the circle of new works: Happy Birthday Edeske!) Helyezkedők o Smooth Operators, 2007 elektromos o electronic 10x0 28,5 cm Ami mögötte van o What is Behind, 2009 vegyes technika O mixed media, 1 1 0 x 1 1 0 cm (címlapon G on the cover) HARASZTŸ ISTVÁN (Édeske) www.edeske.hu A kiállítás szervezője a Hamilton AULICH ART Galéria. A kiállítás megtekinthető 201 0. január 7-ig, munkanapokon 7.30-tól-l 8.30-ig. www.aulichart.hu aulichart@hamilton.hu HAMILTON Zrt. H-1054 Budapest, Aulich utca 5. www.hamilton.hu hamilton@hamilton.hu PICTURE, RELIEF, COLLAGE, MOBILE (extracts) Some 1 30 new works of art has been added to the Harasztÿ-oeuvre catalogue in 2009. That is of which the artist and the organisers of the exhibition at the Aulich Art Gallery selected to put on display in the exhibition celebrating the artist’s 75th birthday. His motives in his works integrate the pictorial and sculptural, the flat and the relief-like artistic means into an extremely fine unity. Among those motives one can find some real-life objects, such as clocks, clock faces, brushes, whistles, zips, chess pieces, electric things, hand tools, discs, lamellae, hoops, bundles of sticks, and then some compositions are created by the regulated play of the patches and outlines and by the cover-reveal of forms created with chrome steel metal pieces cut by laser. The framed works that can be hung on the wall are either perfect squares or horizontal or vertical rectangles. These works, which can only be related to the pictures and reliefs by these external appearances, are to be divided into two sharply contrasted groups. One of them is in the geometrical order. Those works are based on a clear, pure structure and built on a composition consisting of elements such as squares, triangles, circles or some others connected to the shapes of these elements. The other group consists of works in which the motives and elements are put together like a mass, seemingly in a flooding stream. In addition to the inanimate, still objects and elements, in some works one can find openable-closeable mechanisms as well as moveable and moving work-parts, which certainly involve the possibility of change within a formal dimension, but also in terms of background meaning alteration subsequent to the change in appearance. A tiny motion makes a basic change in the meanings and circles of meanings born by the appearance and the sight of the original state. Some earlier electric mobiles and mechanisms or kinetic works, which can be made move by physical interference, reveal what István Harasztÿ is interested in, even in his already “pure” plastically inspired works. The interest is aroused by the machinery which he created, and which exists and functions autonomously and by the grain of dust that got the machinery (the grain of dust that exists autonomously and gets in the machinery). The modification of the regular, usual function, the phenomenon and the situations of getting on a new, surprising track, the changes that turn over the normal way of things going, and all the hidden casual relations and the subsequent, not at all straight, but unexpected and unpredictable consequences are of his main interest. The same view, the same ideology and the same artistic purpose are present in the (mobile) picture-reliefs, as well: it is the order and the system, and the breakdown or the damage of the order and the system that the painter-sculptor is concerned about. He is interested in the reflection of the regular and the evident in contrast with the regular that has become particular or irregular. In the background of the decorative character, wit, irony, free or bitter humour, and in the motif emphases, or in the meaning and relation systems present in the works one can find some deep moral questions. And the artist’s reactions and critical views are summarised in the horrifying, yet nowadays ordinary phenomena of our times. The reality-visions are gone, the reality-miracles are lost and in the traps of the naked reality it is only art that can feed our hopes for the future. Getting above and beyond the hardships, one can dive into the deep, velvet-like brightness of the pictorial planes. One can melt in the formal variety of the cold and rigid metal elements and applications, as the aluminium, the chrome steel and the copper flashes in the light or as they reflect in the dimness of the shade. One can also get deep in the extremely sensitive rich browns, yellows, greys and reds of the changing rusted surfaces that keep reappearing. And that is always made with the fantastic perfection and quality of technical execution.

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