>> WORKS
BErnsteinzimmer
2010, wood, bulb, F: Miklós Surányi
The Science of Imagination, Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest (H)
"István Csákány (Hungarian, b. 1978) has created a huge, site-specific installation for this exhibition: a 1:1 all-wooden replica of the private workshop of a jack-of-all-trades: the well-known messy sanctuary of (usually) men where complex, creative and down-to-earth manual work can be exercised for one's own contentment. This type of activity having been relegated to the realm of free time in the age of almighty machines, the private workshop, especially when roughly carved in wood and set in an uncanny blue room, appears as a time capsule of a terminated past." (Somogyi Hajnal)
Contributors: Ervin Csákány, Ninni Wagner, sculptors: József Tamás Balázs, Andrea Gombos
This is a terRace
2009, wood construction, bulbs, photography, F: Miklós Surányi
AVIA Art Award, Műcsarnok, Budapest (H)
It was an experience to be here!
2009, site-specific installation, F: Miklós Surányi
Open studio, Meetfactory, Prague (CZ)
The Worker of Tomorrow, service-uniform
2009, concrete, 78x130x114 cm, F: Miklós Surányi
Vakuumnoise - Trafó Gallery
„ The pedestal of the worker’s statue is empty - only the absence can be incarnated. Chair, coat, pants, boots - this ensemble forms a figure in ( .. ) sculpture. A figure that is perhaps just slightly bigger than life-size - as expected from the ideal type of the worker - but who is definitely not present. It might appear that the act of raising a statue is an outdated phenomenon, when it is difficult enough to formulate statements about the worker. The absence, heavy as concrete, not only bears the weight of the present, but that of the next moment as well.
For the statue refers to a real situation: it is based on a press photograph
depicting firefighting gear, workwear in other words, readied for emergency. This standby state is preserved in concrete, pointing out the fact that perhaps the imperative of continuous alertness and standby binds us in a similar way. We are always ready for work. If there is work, because its certainty is dubious, and if there is none, because its uncertainty is doubtless.
The workwear awaits the worker, the artistic rendering of the circumstances awaits its centre. ”
(excerpt from exhibition handout, by Nikolett Erős )
I am an contemporary painter - guest's sock
2008, action with collaboration of Judith Fischer, F: Miklós Surányi
Gallery by night 2008 - Studio Gallery Budapest
I am a Contemporary painter was an action for a one-night exhibition in the frame of Gallery By Night 2008. For the event the floor of the gallery was covered completely with red carpet and on the wall in front of the entrance has been sprayed: I am an contemporary painter. The text served as a background for the action. The action was about Judit Fischer (a young contemporary painter) painting István Csákány's toe grey, that was peeping trough a hole in his sock. She covered the toe with the same grey tone then the one of the socks, so from a distance people could hardly recognize the hole after the painting. The action lasted about 20 minutes, afterwards István Csákány stayed for the whole without shoes. The action reflects on an emblematic and well known piece of an Hungarian artist: Kriszta Nagy with the title: I am an contemporary painter.
Erecting
2008, woodcarving, 100x157 cm, F: György Orbán
Studio price 2008 exhibition - Studio Gallery
The woodcarving show s the efforts of a group people to raise the huge sculpture of a human. The visual language of the woodcut is a reminiscence to the woodcut of the socialist times. The situation is based on the preparations of the erection of the piece Monument for a Monument.
The choreography of the mountain
2008, installation, 3.90x5.30x7.80 m, F: Miklós Surányi
The Mechanics of the Canvas - Ernst Museum
(...) The Choreography of the Mountain, built for the show Mechanics of the Canvas in Ernst Museum. This work makes use of the lessons of the Reconstruction of the Lomnicky Peak, but also surpasses the realm of installations for-the-eyes-only, perhaps even going as far as to retrospectively reclassify his earlier works into sculptures. For The Choreography of the Mountain is participatory (it can be climbed): it is not a medium for presenting a work of art; the installation itself is the work of art, it is the corporeal experience of the recipient raised on a pedestal. The real mountain built from rafters is a crystal clear exposition of the formation of space. At the same time, as revealed by the title, the installation draws from stage effects, since the possibility of a mountain hike as an experience in the exhibition space emerges with sensory immediacy. ... (excerpt from Modernist of the Provinces by Áron Fenyvesi, 2009. Balkon)
Monument For A Monument
2008, public sculpture project, size: 22.8x1.25x0.7 m
Adress: Stanica Zilina (SK), F: Dusan Dobias, Beatrix Szörényi, Miklós Surányi
The large roundabout raised on pillars shown on the photo was built by the socialist government in the sixties, in neighborhood called Záriečie in Zilina, Slovakia. To light the circular bridge and the connecting streets as well as to prove that wealth, modernization and progress was going along with socialism, huge, 20 meters tall (!) lampposts were erected. The ambitious street construction is still in use, directing mainly the industrial traffic into and out of the city, but the street lights have never been able to fulfill their task. The people in the meanwhile stole the cables from the rusty iron lampposts, and soon a new, decent lighting system took over their function. Nevertheless, they stayed on their place as over-dimensioned reminders of the achievements and failures of socialism. Today, with their missing function, extraordinary size and formal beauty, they can be seen as public sculptures or monuments.
The declaration of the whole construction as a monument and the revitalization of the street lights were the basic ideas of István Csákány's sculpture project. They artist placed a statue on the top of one of the lampposts located in the middle of the roundabout. The figure is a realistic, life-size portrait of an average man, the artist itself. The figure holds a solar panel above his head with his hands covered by working gloves. The lights placed on the bottom side of the panel use the energy collected in the daytime to illuminate the figure in the night. The sculpture serves as prosthesis enabling the device, in an indirect way, to spread light again. Of course, the fact that the ordinary street light needs its help, reflects the given historical background. The statue itself also enters in dialogue with the ideology and the sculptural conventions of socialism. Instead of the pathos and the monumental worker- and peasant figures of socialist realism, it presents a life-size, average man in casual clothing, who in the distance looks rather small and lonely. He seems to consider his heroic gesture a task or a work, rather than an endeavor that would change the world. But his efforts remain isolated and self-reflective as in the end he is only able to light up himself.
The lamppost with the sculptural extension constitute a virtual meeting point where the ideologies and technologies of the past can get in contact with the ones of today. This synthesis gives back to the city and the inhabitants a piece of their own, forgotten history and presents them in the same time with a new-old city emblem or monument.
The project was realized in cooperation with Stanica (www.stanica.sk) - a former railway station building in the middle of the roundabout, transformed into a House of Culture.
Home-made mutant
2008, house modell (wood, tape, paint) 150x150x70 cm, photography workers (1) (by Surányi Miklós) 150x100 cm , photography house (5, 6) from photo series Abandoned toys by Miklós Surányi , 90x90cm
Province models - Stanica Gallery, F:Dusan Dobias
'50' exhibition series - Studio Gallery, F: György Orbán
Young sculptors - Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, F: Beatrix Szörényi
Home-made Mutant is based on the photography of a not finished twin house in the countryside of Hungary made by the photographer Miklós Surányi. The model of this house was exhibited the first time together with the original photography of the house. Later on it was shown together with group picture of 4 worker-like people standing in a flat that is under reconstruction. The people on the image are the artist himself, friends and relatives. The situation is real they all were working together on the reconstruction of the flat, the photography documents them as workers although non of them is a professional worker. Both, the building and the photography reflect the very common we-do-it-ourselves attitude of people from the former eastern block . The group picture is commissioned by the artist and is made by Surányi Miklós.
Guest's sock
2008, painting (oil/canvas), 150x150 cm
Province Models - Stanica Gallery, F: Dusan Dobias
1 day '50' exhibition series - Studio Gallery, F: György Orbán
Painting of an painted toe, that peeps through a whole in the sock.
A citizen's week-end house
2008, installation, 260x345x300 cm
Province Models - Stanica Gallery, F: Dusan Dobias, Surányi Miklós
A citizen's week-end house is the model of a house with walls made out of functioning and dysfunctional radios. The functioning radios were transmitting simultaneously the sound of several radio channels. For the exhibition the windows separating the gallery space from the bar space were removed and the radio house building and the sound of the radios connection the both spaces. The piece is quotes the painting Province-Transmitter.
Province-transmitter
2007, painting installation, 300x280x300 cm
Models of Provincia - Stanica Gallery, F: Dusan Dobias
Dear painter, paint me... - Trafo Gallery, F: Gabriella Csoszó
Kapitalistische Freundschaft - Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, F: Tamás Kamás
The painting Province-Transmitter is a huge landscape image with a roof-like slat construction on the top of it with the inscription PROVINCIA. In the hilly landscape is placed a week-end house like building with walls made of radios. The painting is exhibited in most cases (Trafo Gallery, Stanica Gallery) in a dark room, with a stage-like podium in front of it that the audience could enter . The piece refers to the A citizen's week-end house piece.
They couldn't sweep it under the carpet
2006, painting installation, 200x3260x200 cm, in cooperation with Beatrix Szörényi
Dear painter, paint me...Trafo Gallery, F: Gabriella Csoszó
Eats=food, Közelítés Gallery, F: Beatrix Szörényi
A 3-dimensional painting made in collaboration with Beatrix Szörényi.
Province modell
2006, painting installation, 320x400x380 cm
Diploma exhibition - Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts Budapest, F: Beatrix Szörényi
The Province Model is house with walls made of straw and a roof that is covered by paintings from the artist and his friends made during their studying time. On the front face of the roof is an inscription: PROVINCIA MAKETT. On both sides of the building are placed two metal ladders, so the audience could climb up and get a close-up view on to the painting.
Road constructor's monument
2005, objekt, 120x300x40 cm
Munka cím - Studio Gallery, F: Szörényi Beatrix
A pathway piece on wheels made of bricks, with a pulling bar. Piece of the exhibition Work Title.
Architectural malpractice
2005, site-specific installation, 49 m2
Work Title - Studio Gallery, F: Gabriella Csoszó
The Architectural malpractice is a site-specific installation which was made through the preparation of the gallery's floor. The new floor was built over the real floor in a way that the surface matched perfectly into the space. The artificial floor contained some hidden 'errors'. These errors were designed by an architect in advance and the architectural plan was exhibited as well.
Untitled - The artist as enterpriser
Work Title - Studio Gallery, F: Gabriella Csoszó
This work came into being as an commission to build a pathway in a garden. I called some unskilled workers to give a hand for the work. By the time I realized that all of them were professional artists, I decided to create a new artistic conception about this work. I therefore documented the working preocess and complemented the work with a memory board fitted into the pathway, containing the builder-artists names, professions and the name of the owner of the pathway.
The Reconstruction of the Lomnicky Peak
2003, installation, 670x700x400 cm
III. Prague Biennale: Private politics (Hungarian section)
Ludwig grant exhibition - Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts (Barcsay hall)
The Robbery of Europe - Millenium Center
(...) The gigantic installation, “recycled” in several contexts, was practically the reconstruction of a national symbol, blending the artist’s uniquely constructivist affinities with his criticism of painting, since the installation was practically constructed of dismantled and recompiled canvas stretchers. Therefore, the work might be considered a reinterpretation of a particular landscape painting. By rebuilding (objectifying) the symbolic landscape as a skeleton-structure, Csákány has given rise to a form on the frontier of the abstract and the concrete, which was one of his first and most influential steps towards his later work and themes, which probe the limits of the genre of installation and explore the issue of provinciality. ... (excerpt from Modernist of the Provinces by Áron Fenyvesi, 2009. Balkon)
Pearl-image
2002, installation, 150x200x100 cm
ART-WINDOW Gallery, Budapest, F: Beatrix Szörényi
The pearl-image was created in the ART WINDOW Gallery. The making of this artwork was a public process, which was made visible to and could be followed by the people passing by the window. For the image (150x200 cm), I used 32 kg of colored glass pearls (rented from a pearl shop), each with a diameter of 3mm. Right after the opening, I began work on the piece. Placed on the wall in the background of the space, was a plaque stating '? days until the art-piece will be ready'. This completion date was continuously revised during the month I spent in the gallery window. During this time I invited several guest artists to offer some assistance, including Beatrix Szörényi, Miklós Mécs, Tamás Kaszás, Attila Kispál, Anikó Loránt . The time spent in conjunction with these artists, the assistance they provided and the dialogue generated, were all important points for me. On average, I spent 6-8 hours a day working in the gallery's window. After the pearl-image was completed, it was exhibited for one day longer before being destroyed (and the pearls returned). The final image depicted two hands sewing pearls.
This motif was reminiscent of Christian icons, often making use of the isolated hand motif, symbolizing the creator.
