CACTyou! / Blog di MACT/CACT Arte Contemporanea Ticino.: Painting

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14 December 2014

WELTSCHMERZ / Csaba Kis Róka at Trafó Galéria Budapest / 18 December 2014 at 7.00 p.m.

English-Hungarian

WELTSCHMERZ - Kis Róka Csaba kiállítása

2014. december 19 - 2015. február 1
Megnyitó: 2014. december 18. (csütörtök) 19:00
Megnyitja: Bartók Imre, író, kritikus

Opening: 18 December, 2014 (Thursday) 7 PM
Opening speech by Imre Bartók, writer, critic

Trafó Gallery’s new experiment with a solo exhibiton of an emerging Hungarian painter goes beyond the institution’s comfort zone. The unmistakable Kis Róka made sure in the past decade that no one would remain indifferent to his work, some hail his revelational artistic freedom, whilst others remain hostile to his unique style.

From the early stage of his career the artist consistently has worked on the depth of his motifs, which were first reflecting upon horror and heavy metal iconography, but recently he has made obvious moves towards art historical references and his playfully baroque and brutally rococo pastoral visuality is now dominated by venetian colorism and dark romantic features. His masculine dystopias are populated by bearded men and soldiers, but the new subjects of his private mythology are kids and teenagers. The mutilation of these figures in the frame of classical portrait genre can be interpreted as the artist’s pessimism related to the future and the German title of the exhibition also reflects upon the psychological pain and sadness caused by fractures between the ideal and the real world.

Supported by: National Cultural Fund of Hungary, Káli Kövek

A Trafó Galéria rendhagyó módon egy magyar képzőművész önálló festészeti kiállításával lép ki műfaji komfort zónájából. Az összetéveszthetetlen stílusú Kis Róka Csaba az elmúlt közel egy évtizedben elérte azt, hogy képei senkit sem hagynak hidegen, vannak, akik revelatív erejűnek tartják művészetének szabadságfokát és kortalanságát, és vannak olyanok is, akiket elriasztanak témái.

A művész a pályája eleje óta gondosan felépített formakincse kinőtte a kezdeti horror és heavy metal stílusjegyeket és mára már több festészet-technikai fordulatot is vett, valamint számtalan történeti réteget is bekebelezett. Kis Róka művészete egyértelműen elmozdulni látszik a festészettörténeti referenciák felé, játékos barokk, még inkább brutálisan filigrán rokokó pasztorál világát egyre inkább a velencei kolorizmus és a sötét romantika jegyei dominálják. Eddig a művész erősen magán-mitologikus elemekre építő maszkulin disztópiáit szakállas férfiak, katonák, állatportrék népesítették be, most debütáló képeinek témai mégis gyerekek és tinédzserek. A leginkább a klasszikus portréműfajok felől megközelített alakokon megjelenő torzulások, csonkítások a művész jövővel kapcsolatos félelmeinek, rossz előérzeteinek kivetülései. A művész a kiállítás német nyelvű címadásával is reflektál arra a pszichológiai folyamatra, mely során az egyén felismeri az általa elképzelt ideális világ és a valóság között húzódó feloldhatatlan törésvonalakat.

Trafó Kortárs Művészetek Háza // Trafó Galéria
1094 Budapest, Liliom utca 41. // t/f.: +36 1 456-2044 // fax: +36 1 456-2050 // gallery@trafo.hu // www.trafo.hu
Nyitva: keddtől vasárnapig 16-19h, előadási napokon 16-22h

20 July 2014

BEAUTY AND DECONSTRUCTION / Stéphane Zaech / VERNISSAGE Saturday 13 September 2014 at 17:30 / 13 September - 9 November 2014

[Scorri verso il basso per la versione in italiano]

Stéphane Zaech (1966), Soir d'été, oil on canvas, 2014.
Ph Corinne Cuendet. Courtesy Katz Contemporary Zürich, Switzerland.

BEAUTY AND DECONSTRUCTION

Stéphane Zaech

Vernissage__Saturday 13^th of September 2014 at 5.30 p.m.

13 September – 9 November 2014

Fri-Sat-Sun, 2.00 – 6.00 p.m.

Hard and uncompromising describes this exhibition of paintings by the Swiss artist Stéphane Zaech (1966) entitled BEAUTY AND DECONSTRUCTION. The origins of this artist’s work can be traced to a particular period in time, one of transition from one era, when stylistic choices were underpinned by a strong linguistic idea, to another, in which concepts of transmedia applied to art and to society are becoming more evident and necessary in the move towards emancipation from avant-gardes and ideologies that often bear connotations of an extenuating, repetitive and self-referential coherence, and where a return to forms of academism is latent.

It is a chance of history and of his inner vocation that Stéphane Zaech was born on the very threshold of this difficult but exciting period, when a new alignment first came into being for political, social, economic and financial values.

His art is rooted – in our opinion – in the pure principles of painting, where he develops on a handful of themes, such as portraiture and, in parallel, landscape. The portrait is something of an analysis that the artist makes of his female model, while also lucidly targeting the paradoxes of a priggish society teetering on the brink between social convention and animal vocation. The series of portraits of personalities drawn from the art scene are wonderful as they verge on the caricature, but they also capture the public and private persona very accurately, just as references and linguistic quotations ‘à la manière de’ are often found in his portraiture, in which landscape infallibly provides an exotic backdrop, sometimes setting the temperament and the climate of the work as a whole. This reference to nature’s sheer exoticism echoes certain ideal landscapes whose matrix can be sought in the Renaissance, or later to scenes reproduced in the first travel books, but never actually witnessed by human eye.

What it all boils down to is that these are merely theatrical stage sets, where a grotesque personality seems to pose inside a scene constructed purely and simply for the purpose.

To quote quotationism may also be a post-contemporary quirk, something like the squint on Botticelli’s Venus, an imperfection that enhances beauty, revising and adapting it by calling its criteria into question. We do not know what magic is at work when his output also reminds us of Stravinsky’s polytonal music, whose concept Zaech has apparently adopted as his own.

Mario Casanova, 2014 [translation Pete Kercher]

MACT/CACT Suisse enjoys the financial and cultural support of Republic and Canton of Ticino/Swisslos, MIGROS percento culturale, Alfred Richterich Stiftung Kastanienbaum, Friends of MACT/CACT, City of Bellinzona, the Artists.

A special thank goes to Galerie Katz Contemporary Zürich.

Stéphane Zaech (1966), Paysage à la Vierge, oil on canvas, 2014.
Ph Corinne Cuendet. Courtesy Katz Contempolrary Zürich, Switzerland.

BELLEZZA E DECOSTRUZIONE

Stéphane Zaech

Vernissage__sabato 13 settembre 2014 dalle 17:30

13 settembre – 9 novembre 2014

Ve-sa-do dalle 14:00 alle 18:00

Una mostra di pittura dura e pura è quella dedicata all’artista svizzero Stéphane Zaech (1966) dal titolo BELLEZZA E DECOSTRUZIONE. La genesi del suo lavoro corrisponde a un periodo storico particolare, di transizione da un’epoca, in cui gli stilemi erano sorretti da un’idea linguistica forte, a un’altra, ove i concetti transmediali applicati all’arte e alla società si fanno più evidenti e necessari nel verso della emancipazione da avanguardie e ideologie connotate spesso da una coerenza estenuante, ripetitiva e autoreferenziale, e laddove il ritorno a forme di accademismo è latente.

Stéphane Zaech nasce, per casualità storica e vocazione interiore, sul crinale di questo difficile ma entusiasmante periodo di riassetto dei valori politici e sociali, ed economico-finanziari.

La sua arte si fonda – secondo noi – sui principi puri della pittura, ove egli approfondisce pochi temi come il ritratto e, parallelamente, il paesaggio. Il ritratto è una sorta di analisi che l’artista fa del modello soprattutto femminile, prendendo di mira in maniera ludica anche i paradossi di una società perbenista in bilico tra la convenzione sociale e la vocazione animale. La serie di ritratti dedicati a personaggi del mondo dell’arte sono caricaturali ed esilaranti, ma puntuali nel pittare il personaggio pubblico e privato, così come i riferimenti e il citazionismo linguistico ‘à la manière de’ sono frequenti nella sua ritrattistica, al cui interno il paesaggio ne fa immancabilmente da sfondo esotico, determinando talvolta il ‘temperamento’ e il ‘clima’ del quadro generale. Questo rimando all’esotismo della natura fa da eco a certi paesaggi ideali di matrice rinascimentale o più tardi a scenografie riportate sui primi libri di viaggio e mai viste prima dall’occhio umano.

Sono fondamentalmente delle semplici messe in scena teatrali, dove il personaggio grottesco sembra posare entro una scenografia appositamente e semplicemente costruita all’uopo.

Citare il citazionismo potrebbe anche essere una particolarità post-contemporanea, una sorta di ‘strabismo di Venere’, che ripropone criteri di bellezza rivisitati e riadattati. Non sappiamo per quale magia la sua opera pure ci ricorda la politonalità musicale stravinskyana, di cui Zaech, pare, abbia fatto suo il concetto.

Mario Casanova, 2014

MACT/CACT Arte Contemporanea Ticino è sostenuto finanziariamente e culturalmente da Repubblica e Cantone del Ticino/Swisslos, MIGROS percento culturale, Alfred Richterich Stiftung Kastanienbaum, Amici del MACT/CACT, Città di Bellinzona, gli Artisti.

Un ringraziamento va alla Galleria Katz Contemporary di Zurigo.

Stéphane Zaech (1966), Cosmos, oil on canvas, 2013.
Ph Corinne Cuendet. Courtesy Katz Contemporary Zürich, Switzerland.

PHOTO PRESS

Ph. Pier Giorgio De Pinto © PRO LITTERIS / Zürich

15 November 2013

CSABA KIS RÓKA at acb Gallery Budapest / 2013

[English and Hungarian]

Csaba Kis Róka - Extinction is a formof art / Kihalni tudni kell

Csaba Kis Róka is known for his unique and expressive painterly universe. His imagery is based on the Central European male experience with all its taboos, along with the historical heritage of romantic nationalism and militarism. Kis Róka’s visual dictionary is derived from a wide range of visual languages from the Christian iconography of suffering, through B-category horror movies, to the traditions of representation in local historical painting. The violence of his bloody crowd scenes has primarily to do with dominance and male power, the manifestations of which are both a historical phenomenon and a still existing experience for those born and raised in the societies of the Central and Eastern Europe.

Kis Róka’s phraseology combines the painterly tradition of the period between the late renaissance and the late 19th century with the approach of early 20th century expressionist painting. The artist often uses classic compositional patterns as prefiguration for his narrative tableaux, thus amplifying the tension between content and form.

The style of Kis Róka’s newer series of paintings has moved from narrativity towards a more painterly approach, where the emphasis shifts from a detailed depiction of various acts of violence to the expressive tools of painting. Therefore, the compositions of the pictures have been simplified; the figures in the paintings depict individual phases, rather than actions.

The exhibition entitled Extinction is a form of art draws a caricature of contemporary society through a possible future, as a potential outcome of extremist responses to the economic and social problems recently culminating both worldwide and in Hungary. The escalation of palpable economic and social disparities causes remarkable distortions worldwide. As the puzzled masses of welfare societies experience their economic decline, they become increasingly furious and more prone to manipulation an account of tendencies beyond their influence. Perhaps in their desire to create order from the chaos, people increasingly believe that violence can be a solution to these problems. The paintings shown in the exhibition capture a possible final stage of this course, where the individual, as a creature abandoned, must face the acts of its own making. The wait for a future Armageddon is part of every culture. In our age, the fear of the collapse of human civilization and the depiction of imagined post-apocalyptic conditions are perhaps most strikingly – and most effectively, in terms of reaching the masses – represented through the medium of cinema. The world presented by Kis Róka reveals a close relationship with these depictions of decay and human degradation.

Kis Róka Csaba különleges, expresszív festői univerzumáról ismert. Ábrázolásainak hátterében a Közép-európai férfi-tapasztalat áll, összes tabujával és a romantikus nacionalizmus és militarizmus történelmi örökségével. Kis Róka vizuális szótára számos különböző képi hagyományból merít a szenvedés keresztény ikonográfiájától kezdve a B-kategóriás horrorfilmeken át a lokális történelmi festészet ábrázolási tradícióiig. Véres tömegjeleneteiben minden erőszak a dominanciáról és a férfihatalomról szól, amelynek megnyilvánulásai történelmi és mai napig is létező tapasztalatot jelentenek mindazok számára, akik a Közép- és Kelet-Európai társadalmakban születtek és nevelkedtek.

Kis Róka kifejezésmódjában a késő-reneszánsztól a 19. század végéig tartó festészeti hagyomány keveredik a 20. század eleje expresszionista festészetének felfogásával. A művész gyakran használ klasszikus kompozíciós mintákat narratív tablóinak előképéül, ezzel is erősítve a feszültséget tartalom és forma között.

Kis Róka festményei a közelmúltban a narrativitás felől a festőibb megközelítés irányába mozdultak, amelyben a válogatott erőszakos cselekmények részletekbe menő ábrázolása helyett a festészet expresszív eszközeire helyeződik át a hangsúly. Ebből adódóan a képek

kompozíciója is egyszerűsödött, a festményeken szereplő figurák akciók helyett már inkább egy-egy stádiumot ábrázolnak.

A Kihalni tudni kell című kiállítás a jelenkori társadalom torzképét rajzolja meg egy lehetséges jövőn keresztül, mely a nagyvilágban és Magyarországon mostanában kulminálódó gazdasági és társadalmi problémákra adott szélsőséges reakciók egyik potenciális végkifejlete. A napjainkban érezhető gazdasági és társadalmi különbségek kiéleződése látványos torzulásokat okoz szerte a világon. A jóléti társadalmakban a gazdasági lecsúszást megélő tanácstalan tömegek egyre dühösebbé és manipulálhatóbbá válnak az általuk nem befolyásolható tendenciák miatt. Az emberek, talán a rend létrehozásának vágya okán, egyre szélesebb körben hisznek abban, hogy az erőszak megoldás lehet a problémákra. A kiállításon szereplő festmények ennek a folyamatnak egy lehetséges végstádiumát ragadják meg, ahol az egyén magára maradt lényként néz szembe a saját maga által elkövetett tettekkel. Az eljövendő Armageddon várása minden kultúra része. Korunkban talán a film műfajában jelenik meg a legszembeötlőbben – és a szélesebb tömegeket leginkább elérő módon – az emberi civilizáció megsemmisülésével kapcsolatos félelem, illetve az elképzelt poszt-apokaliptikus állapotok ábrázolása. A pusztulás és az emberi lealacsonyodás ilyenfajta ábrázolásaival mutat szoros rokonságot a Kis Róka által bemutatott világ.

01 May 2013

SYMBOLISM, MYTHOLOGY AND GROTESQUE / Csaba Kis Róka / Photographic documentation

All photos by Pier Giorgio De Pinto © PRO LITTERIS / Zürich

20 March 2011

UNPAINTED_Francesca Guffanti

Scroll down for English version

unpainted

Francesca Guffanti

Vernissage_sabato 16 aprile 2011 alle 17:30

16 aprile – 22 maggio 2011

Ve-sa-do_14:00-18:00 e su appuntamento

UNPAINTED è il titolo della seconda mostra personale che Francesca Guffanti (Italia-Svizzera, 1962) inaugura sabato 16 aprile presso il CACT Centro d’Arte Contemporanea Ticino.

In un’epoca storica, in cui le certezze ideologiche e le avanguardie si sono fortemente assopite per lasciare posto alle mode, alla televisione, alle tecnologie, ai modelli estetici recenti e alle strategie di mercato, il ritorno all’iconologia grazie alla realizzazione materiale e corporale del concetto è uno dei tanti aspetti dell’arte post-contemporanea. Se di buoni artisti concettuali e installativi ve ne sarebbero tanti, di bravi pittori, nonostante la riapparizione non tanto recente di questo linguaggio, ce ne sono fortunatamente ancora pochi. L’esigenza da parte di autori e pubblico di riappropriarsi di un mezzo tanto antico, quanto universale, risiede nell’esigenza di molti di tornare a misurare il tempo al di fuori della mistificazione tecnologica e virtuale, a ripensare in tempo reale l’immagine e i suoi significati. Così come la pittura e la sua storia.

Francesca Guffanti è pittrice.

UNPAINTED è un corpus di lavoro, che si suddivide in tre momenti distinti, dove l’artista italiana dichiara apertamente la sua appartenenza linguistica: la pittura, appunto. Lo fa attraverso il pensiero delle campiture di colore e dell’arte, la sua storia, e lo studio del mezzo pittorico. I temi continuano ad essere quelli attorno all’universo femminile, che intride in gran parte il lavoro recente di Guffanti. Il suo studio in questi ultimi mesi implica il guardare la storia e il citazionismo come elemento di confronto con essa, nonché di recupero della coscienza storica in bilico tra dinamismo e tradizione: Michelangelo Caravaggio, Il Pontormo e David Hockney.

Rimettere in seria discussione le avanguardie astratte, futuriste e concettuali che hanno permeato e dominato tutto il Novecento, scardinando l’arte pura e dura dal suo contesto di nicchia, è uno degli elementi di ricerca fondamentali della pittrice di Monza.

La Deposizione (2010), L’Annunciazione (2010) e La Visitazione (2011), olio su tela il primo e su carta gli altri due, tutti di grande formato, riconducono immediatamente al concetto di incontro, che Francesca Guffanti trasla al mondo femminile, ricollocandolo entro l’universalità e la centralità dell’arte e dell’essere umano nell’epoca post-contemporanea in cui viviamo.

La mise en abîme, cui si sottopone l’autrice, immortalandosi in autoritratti, rappresenta lo sviluppo tematico dell’‘incontro’ come condivisione e definizione di identità. La nudità è la simbolica sublimazione e spogliazione dell’io per la ricerca del sé, cui Guffanti dà corpo e significato anche attraverso un intervento video in grado di riprodurre la liturgia dell’atto dell’incontrarsi e della compartecipazione.

Il terzo corpo della mostra, anch’esso di recente produzione, è rappresentato dalla favola e in particolare dai personaggi di Cappuccetto Rosso, la nonna, il Lupo e il Cacciatore. Piccole e sensuali icone che si alternano tecnicamente tra olio su tela e acquerello su carta, le opere rappresentano tasselli della famosa favola, laddove l’artista riflette sull’attribuzione di ruoli morali ai diversi personaggi. Come sempre, nel caso di Guffanti, l’aspetto analitico, a tratti gentilmente ossessivo, è una costante del suo lavoro e della sua ricerca, partendo – nello specifico di questo nuovissimo lavoro – dagli scritti e dalle versioni letterarie o iconologiche dei Fratelli Grimm e di Charles Perrault.

A compendio della mostra sarà proiettata nel lounge Il sangue segreto delle cose, intervista video (2011) di Mario Casanova, in cui Francesca Guffanti parlerà senza veli di se stessa e dell’arte (a cura e per la regia di Pier Giorgio De Pinto).

Mario Casanova, 2011

UNPAINTED

Francesca Guffanti

Vernissage_Saturday 16 April 2011 at 5.30 p.m.

16 April – 22 May 2011

Fri-Sat-Sun_2.00-6.00 p.m. or by appointment

UNPAINTED is the title of the second solo show that Francesca Guffanti (Italy-Switzerland, 1962) is due to inaugurate on Saturday 16 April in the CACT Contemporary Art Centre in Canton Ticino.

At a time in history when ideological certainties and the avant-gardes have lost much of their impact, giving way to fashions, to television, to technologies, to the latest aesthetic models and to market strategies, the return to iconology achieved by means of the material and corporal achievement of the concept is one of the many aspects of post-contemporary art. While there is no shortage of viable conceptual and installation artists, there are fortunately still very few good painters, despite the fact that the language has made a comeback to the scene – and not so recently, at that. The need for artists and the public to take possession of a medium as ancient as it is universal resides in the requirement perceived by many: a need to go back to measuring time without any of today’s technological and virtual mystification, to work in real time to reappraise the image and its meanings. Such as painting and its history.

Francesca Guffanti is a painter.

UNPAINTED is a body of work that can be classified in three distinct moments, when this Italian artist makes an unabashed declaration of her linguistic affiliation: to painting, naturally. She does so by conceiving colour fields and her art, its history and her study of the medium of painting. Guffanti’s themes are consistently focused on a feminine world, which permeates so much of her recent work. Of late, her study has implied observing history and quotationism as an element used to measure up with it, as well as to revive an established awareness that is balanced on the knife-edge between dynamism and tradition: Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Pontormo and David Hockney.

Seriously questioning the abstract, Futurist and conceptual avant-gardes that permeated

and dominated the entire twentieth century, setting the purity of Art for Art’s Sake free from its niche context, is one of the underlying elements of the research conducted by this painter who lives in the north Italian city of Monza.

The Deposition (2010), The Annunciation (2010) and The Visitation (2011), the first oil on canvas and the other two on paper, all three in a large format, immediately conjure up the concept of meeting, which Francesca Guffanti then transfers to a female world, relocating it between the universality and the centrality of art and of the human being in the post-contemporary era in which we now live.

The mise en abîme to which the artist subjects herself as she captures her image for posterity in self-portraits constitutes the development on the theme of the “meeting” as a moment of sharing and defining an identity. Nudity stands for the symbolic sublimating and stripping of the ego in search of the id, to which Guffanti gives body and meaning with her video work, which has the ability to reproduce the ritual of the act of meeting and of sharing.

The third body of this exhibition is another recent production that represents the fairy tale and in particular the characters in Little Red Riding Hood: the grandmother, the wolf and the huntsman. Sensual little icons that alternate in technique between oil on canvas and watercolour on paper, these works represent stages in the famous tale, in which the artist ponders how moral roles are attributed to the various characters. As always in Guffanti, the aspect of analysis – which sometimes verges on the politely obsessive – is a constant in her work and her research, in the specific case of this brand-new piece starting from the writings and the literary and iconological versions of the Grimm Brothers and of Charles Perrault.

As an accompaniment to the exhibition, the lounge in the venue will host a screening of the video interview Il sangue segreto delle cose (The secret blood of things), conducted in 2011 by Mario Casanova, in which Francesca Guffanti casts all restraints aside as she talks about herself and her art (curated and directed by Pier Giorgio De Pinto).

Mario Casanova, 2011 [translation Pete Kercher]