More Light! Light Environments

transcript

L i g h t E n v i r o n m e n t s

E N D R E L E H E L P A K S I

More Light! Light Environments An attempt to define a term based on Hungarian cultural and artistic products

1.1.1. The term light environment The two words, light environment, are often used in the context of contemporary art. Light installation is sometimes used as a synonym for light environment, just as environment and installation are likewise often used interchangeably. My decision to use the word environment as the focus of this exhibition instead of installation allows for a broader interpretation: it is not just the prefabricated criteria of light installations, but those of light environments that we will seek to recognize as we survey these cultural-artistic products. This decision was based not solely on questions of terminology, but rather more on the fluidity of the Hungarian language on the one hand and on tradition on the other. Namely, that alongside the concept light installation, the expression light environment has also been used in Hungarian. The term light environment was first used in an introduction to an exhibition of works by Attila Csáji organized in Eger in 2000.

1.1.2. EnvironmentI would first like to outline the history of the environment. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow in 1958 (published under the title Assemblage, Environments & Happenings in 1965) in the context of visual art as the definition of an artistic product, indeed as a genre. Kaprow derived it from the creative practice of his immediate environment. In his case this is essentially the avant-garde extension of painting. According to Kaprow, environment has common roots with assemblage and only identifies the difference in size between the two; although he formulates this by claiming that one must “walk into” an environment. In other words, he treats the spatial relationships and physical presence as given, but the derivation of it from painting signals unresolved problems, for Kaprow continues in his definition and arrives at physical presence – and its concomitant: irreproducibility. He therefore takes further steps in the direction of the uppercase Chance, which can be – for example – an artist, a material, a location. He speaks of interactive environments in which “[it is the visitor-participant’s task to] continue the work’s inherent processes” – and he introduces the happening as a form built on elements that can be randomized. Happening and environment are the “passive and active sides of the same coin” – one must be present in both cases.The “environment” component – the content component of light environments – is a spatial situation in which there is at least one person and which is either human-made and the result of artistic activity or is a ready-found environment which has been consciously identified as artistic. This situation does not always

necessarily take a material form – unless we wish to disregard the lessons of Conceptualism. Therefore, the sole condition is that one perceive him/herself as being inside something – although the present study primarily takes into account examples that have found material form.

1.1.3. LightThe understanding of light is a problem that boasts a history much more extensive than the previously discussed concepts. Religion, philosophy, physics and biochemistry all strive to seize its essence, and any brief summary of these attempts – as part of a discussion of our own field of study – would be hopelessly uncertain.Therefore, when describing the significance of light environments, we must be more modest. Let us understand the word light according to the following simplified formula: without going into the details of what electromagnetic radiation or photons are, visible light has a wavelength of 300–420 and 680–800 nanometres of electromagnetic radiation, or respectively the range which falls between 7,5× 1014 and 3,8× 1014 Hz.From our viewpoint, the biochemical projection proves to be the most interesting, which we have formulated in the following manner: light is the physical phenomenon which, of the human organs, the eyes are the best suited to perceive. The question as to whether non-physical light and the non-physical eye – or, in the writings of Goethe: the outer and inner light – are more

important than their physical counterpart is best left open, given that it is weighed down with uncertainties regarding its physical nature. We can nevertheless establish that if – based on undoubtedly surpassed and shaky foundations – we consider light as a purely physical phenomenon, which we perceive in a biochemical manner, then we must regard the conceptual forms of light as secondary.

1.1.4. Proposal for a definition of light environmentIn view of all this, a light environment is an artistic product which provides a perceptibility for (at least one) person’s spatial presence through light. Our definition therefore has shades of tautology: we explain an environment with light and explain light with its ability to define an environment.We could have arrived at this tautology sooner had we not taken these two words (environment and light) as our point of departure, by which I mean that the Hungarian word for world, “világ,” is also used in the sense of light, as in most Slavic languages (for example in Polish: światło / świat and in Bulgarian: светлинен and свят). In his instructional book (Vision in Motion, 1946), László Moholy-Nagy referred to a similar idea from Nathan Lerner: as light, sinking into the deepest nooks of our subconscious, possesses an immensely powerful psychological force, its relationship with our spatial experience is so intense that it may almost be regarded as identical with it. In other words, visible space is illuminated space and spatial experience is therefore the result of light.

The tautology is only an apparent tautology if the light environment “creates self-consciousness”; for lack of a better word: presence-magic – which, from a psychophysical approach is considered as the self-examining state of the brain. At this point, we must admit that on this occasion – without abandoning the field of science and setting out in the direction of a kind of subjectivism – it is the unscientific character of naivety that appears as the most feasible path. Therefore, from the outset we suppose the instinctive content and prosaic logic of light environment as an art term and, hanging on to this – and relying on some level of intuition in addition to the main current of rationality –, we will comprehend the products documented in this exhibition as light environments and their relevant theoretical elements “in advance”.

1.2. Light environment in the history of art László Moholy-Nagy, who was also a pedagogue and a theoretician, was the first artist to come near the content of the term light environment as we are using it here. In his 1927 book entitled Painting Photography Film, he formulated the following ideas: “…It is probable that future development will attach the greatest importance to kinetic, projected composition, probably even with interpenetrating beams and masses of light floating freely in the room without a direct plane of projection.” In 1946, in his work entitled Vision in Motion, he wrote the following: “It is also possible to present color-light values not in order to create an illusion of a naturalistic scene but to build up a new feeling of space

through different colored lights within a colored light display, as they appear, for example, in the »light box«. (…) The true kinetic representation of color-light values will bring the first great sensation of direct light display.” In addition to creating the device Lichtrequisit, Moholy-Nagy repeatedly dwells on this subject, as if it were the principal obsession that preoccupied him from the 1920s until his death. Moholy-Nagy also derives the question of light environments from painting. However, from the outset he considers a spatial realization in opposition to the (motion) picture’s conventional reception-structure as a Gesamtkunstwerk, a fusion of various artistic forms and mediums, as an endpoint. His deliberations regularly culminate in this, as he regards it as the expression of a relativistic world view, considered as progressive at the time: four dimensional space-time dynamism, on which he had written in his manifesto on the dynamic-constructive system of forces (Dynamisch konstruktives Kraftsystem, Der Sturm, Berlin, 1927). The canonization of kinetic art progressed in the direction of Moholy-Nagy’s vision. In the 1960s, several large-scale exhibitions were organized some of which transformed the concept of kinetic art in the direction of use of light. One example was the exhibition Licht und Bewegung – kinetische Kunst (Kunsthalle Bern, 1965), curated by Harald Szeemann. In 1964, at the documenta 3 there was a special section under the same name (Licht und Bewegung), and in 1967, in connection with the work by Julio le Parc, the catalogue for the exhibition Optical and Kinetic Art at the Tate Gallery states that it is the “only example of what is one of the fastest developing trends of kinetic art: that in which light is not

simply used to make the things visible but is the essential part of the work of art.” (Michael Compton: Optical and Kinetic Art, Tate Gallery, 1967, reprint 1974.) The catalogue presents this innovative art as closely akin to happening, “which involves the audience,” and it labels all this as “environmental games”. Twenty years after Moholy-Nagy, Frank Popper, the godfather of light art, in the introduction to a catalogue of the – according to its title – first exhibition that truly focused on light art (KunstLichtKunst. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1966), speaks of light environments as they pertain to the subject of our difficulty, a.k.a. Moholy-Nagy’s obsession. The exhibition made the realization of revolutionary new “specially designed rooms” possible for the invited artists and artist groups so that they would be able to create environmental displays. He pays special attention to the “environmental factor” – attributing to it a qualitative jump, and it is conspicuous that he uses the word environment instead of installation. Finally he addresses our subject matter, possibly using the two terms side by side: “…and what might be called the environmental art of light.” Although Frank Popper entitled his 1975 book Kinetic Art, the subtitle speaks of light, motion, environment art and action (Die kinetische Kunst: Licht und Bewegung, Umweltkunst und Aktion, DuMont, Schauberg), signalling the direction art history had taken. The book erects a light-centric genealogy, in which the use of light evolves from illuminated objects to light environments. He proceeds to categorize these according to technical media, but opposed to the creation of spaces he too takes the inclusion of the spectator as another aspect on which to differentiate. He believes that the term environment must

also be defined: “The environment should be understood in the broadest terms as an exemplary meeting point of physical and psychological factors that determine our environments.” (“Environment ist im weitesten Sinne als der modellhafte Schnittpunkt physischer und psychologischer Faktoren zu definieren die unsere Umwelt bestimmen.”) Thus in connection with Schöffer, he opens a historical perspective on the inclusion of the audience – as if this were an automatically concomitant element. By the 1980s, so many new media and tools were at the disposal of artists that Popper thought it more fitting to speak of the art of the electronic age (Art of the Electronic Age, Thames and Hudson, 1993), which is also signalled by the exhibition Electra in Paris in 1983. Moreover, interactivity, which is not the same thing as participation, became the palpable guiding strand in the interpretation of the light environment. Users come and the light environment will be at most a prop, a thing at hand executed well or less well, but mostly as a technical question. The autonomy of abstract forms considered as an important achievement by Moholy-Nagy moves in the direction of content-based productions. In the first decade of the 21st century, the interest in non-illustrative light environments with objectives valid at the origin of the term again became lively, as illustrated by the exhibition Lux Europae (Copenhagen, 2002) or Peter Weibel’s gigantic light art retrospective, the Lichtkunst aus Kunstlicht (ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2006). At the time when Weibel was explicitly assembling a muster of arts, the material of which was (artificial) light, Jiří Zemánek was organizing an exhibition based on

an entirely different approach, yet one that coincided with this exhibition’s interest, focusing on both natural and inner light (Ejhle světlo – Look Light, Moravská galerie v Brně, Brno, 2003).

1.3. Light environment in Hungary

1.3.1. Literature on the subject There is hardly any literature in Hungarian on Hungarian artists who work with light art and have won international renown. Apart from biographical surveys, the endeavour to have a public scholarly dialogue on the art form has yet to commence. Encouraging signs are the DLA and MA theses on this topic following the millennium (Márta Krámli, Orsolya Hangyel, Eszter Tamás). In these, light art and kinetic art often coincide, and the internationally relevant question that attempts to define the art form also arises: is light art art that consists of light or art that takes light as its subject matter?With a few exceptions (Tamás Aknai – Nicolas Schöffer, 1975; Krisztina Passuth – Moholy-Nagy, 1982; the most recent is a book on Lajos Dargay written by numerous authors, published in 2006), biographies of artists with Hungarian roots or ties to Hungary who occupied themselves with light were often authored by foreign scholars. This is not surprising if we consider that while the people in question were Hungarian-born artists the majority of them only began to have professional success after they had left their homeland. In 2013, Márton Orosz

defended his doctoral thesis On the Revision of Vision, the subject of which was the art of György Kepes – and with this he was the first to outpace international authors. In addition, there is also relevant literature on the works of artists who continue to work with light, such as Attila Csáji, András Mengyán, and Gyula Várnai. All of these will be important building blocks of the yet-to-be-written history of (Hungarian) light art.

1.3.2. The emergence of light art in the publicEarly milestones of canonisation included the opening of the Schöffer Museum in 1980 in Kalocsa and the permanent György Kepes exhibition in the Vitkovics House in Eger in 1989. In recent years the latter was moved to the Kepes Centre in the city, which was added to the original collection. Around the same time, light kinetics also appeared in public spaces, again in Eger (Lajos Dargay, 1978) and in Kalocsa (Schöffer, 1982). The same can be said with regards to exhibitions: a series of solo shows of light art were organized in Hungary. Among these, the Schöffer exhibition at the Budapest Kunsthalle in 1982 was a major breakthrough. Early signs of the age of installations included Attila Csáji and Norbert Kroó’s laser light environment at the Hungarian National Gallery and the interactive installation of András Mengyán in 1984 in Székesfehérvár. These paved the way for large-scale solo exhibitions focusing on light art, which became increasingly frequent in the 1990s. The Fészek Gallery and the church interior of the Kiscell Museum, which is particularly suitable for installations, often included works dealing with light, both then and ever since.

Almost like a series, the Kiscell Museum has presented the light environments of the Block Group, Klára Kuchta, Gyula Várnai and most recently Luca Korodi.However, to date, no comprehensive exhibition focusing solely on the subject of light has been held in Hungary. More Light! is an attempt to compensate for this. I submitted my proposal for the current exhibition to the Budapest Gallery’s open call for curatorial applications entitled Tendencies. It is a fortuitous coincidence that UNESCO has declared the year 2015 as the International Year of Light. Our respect goes out to those who, by organizing group exhibitions, played an important role in familiarizing the Hungarian public with this form of art: Júlia N. Mészáros and Attila Csáji. Following the exhibition in Győr in 1993 (Colour and Light, Napoleon House), the Kepes Society about every two years organized in Eger and other locations symposia and exhibitions on light. As far as I know, no significant group exhibitions have been organized that focused on this art from. Yet we know of one more collective endeavour that was marginalized and ignored, even by Hungarian standards. This was the Applied Arts Department of the Hungarian Association for the Protection of Industrial Property (Magyar Iparjogvédelmi Egyesület Heves Megyei Szervezete Iparesztétika Szakosztály) of Heves County of the MTESZ (short for Műszaki és Természettudományi Egyesületek Szövetsége or Association of Technical and Scientific Societies). In the 1970s, they were the Hungarian equivalent of western groups consisting of engineers and artists that had been active in the 1950s and 1960s in the West. The first public group exhibition of light art was held thanks to them and Kineteam, a society that was reorganized by the remaining members of the group

GYULA VÁRNAIOne of the Rare Moments, 2006

12 October – 12 November | Municipal Gal lery – Kiscel l Museum

Curator: Edit Sasvári

following the resignation of founding member Lajos Dargay (their publication was entitled Technika és Művészet ’74–’78, or Technology and Art ’74–’78). They organized their exhibitions in rural towns and also executed commissions for public spaces. Light art also has a significant presence in large-scale exhibitions on fundamentally different subject matters, the majority of which are tied to the activities of Peter Weibel (Jenseits von Kunst / Beyond Art, Neue Galerie Graz and Ludwig Museum Budapest, 1996) and Miklós Peternák (exhibition series in the Budapest Kunsthalle: Butterfly Effect, 1996; Media Model, 2001; Vision – Image and Perception [with Nikolett Erőss], 2005). The newly established Intermedia Department at the Academy of Fine Arts was in the process of self-definition, and the key term characteristic of the time was “interactive media installation”. In the Hungary of the 1990s – in view of the scale and publicity of exhibitions at the Kunsthalle – these were the first instances where the possibility of synchronicity with international trends arose.

2. Possible cases of light environments

2.1. Natural lights From the Late Stone and Bronze Ages there are settlements and burial grounds in the Carpathian Basin which were oriented according to specific directions of the annual movement of the Sun. For example the settlement of Albertfalva from

the Early Bronze Age shows that the ridges of the houses’ roofs were oriented – according to archaeological-astronomical calculations – to converge in one direction, namely the line of the winter solstice. An urn that was used in burials and suggests a cult of the Sun has also been found in Hungary; the sides of such an urn, which is from the Early Bronze Age, are decorated with symbols of the Sun. Considerations of orientation have remained important for thousands of years, and up to the present day, in both religious, rural and metropolitan architecture.The conscious utilization of natural lights in artistic strategies can be tied to the reception of land art in Hungary. In his 1973 installation, Károly Hopp-Halász used fire to fill the monumental spiral formation dug in the sand of the bank of the Danube. The composition draws on Robert Smithson’s famous Spiral Jetty. The Block Group also used fire in its installation erected in the Monostor Fort near Komárom. Fire is also a common element in live and performance arts. BMZ (Miklós Zoltán Baji), for example, is keen on using it in his ritualistic events. György Kepes’s Flame Garden (1970), which involves the use of flames of various heights transforming into music, remained distant from events in Hungary. In memory of the 1956 Revolution, János Sugár wanted to bring fire inside the space of a museum, fire that would have to be continuously kept alight by the visitors. The Ephemeridae mobiles Lajos Dargay made in the 1980s visualized the astrological constellations (“horoscopes”) of specific people’s time of birth. With his installation in Tátikavár, Péter Kecskés created an “eclipse” of the total solar eclipse of 1999 on the ground inside the edifice. In 2003, in the space of a gallery Gyula Domián fastened threads showing the rays of a certain position of the Sun.

LAJOS DARGAYLitt le Ephemerides I , 1985

l ight modulator

Csongor G. Szigeti’s Sun Pin (2006) follows the position of the Sun, thereby making it perceivable even inside a closed space.

2.2. Artificial lights

2.2.1. Interior installations Miklós Erdély’s installation entitled Hidden Green (1977) was a complex spatial arrangement that was illuminated with green light. Participants found themselves in a hypnotic state in the single-colour light. Attila Csáji’s installation entitled New Vision was realized in 1980 at the Hungarian National Gallery. Together with physicist Norbert Kroó, the artist created the first laser light environment in Hungary. In the first decade of the 21st century, Csáji presented numerous monumental laser light environments in which laser scanners were used alongside projectors to project onto semi-transparent suspended screens. András Mengyán’s exhibition of 1984 entitled Programmable Space was an interactive installation controlled by computer programs which synchronized plastic elements lit from the inside, a super 8 film projector, slides, colour photographs and programmed music. Ágnes Péter’s work Light Installation was exhibited at the Fészek Gallery in 1994. The lighting programme, which lasted a few minutes, projected electric light on sculptural elements that slowly faded and turned on the UV lamp that was placed behind iron plates and lead strips. As it emitted light, the UV lamp made the phosphorescent dust scattered on

JÁNOS SUGÁRFire in the Museum, 2015

OFF-Biennále, Budapest © http://tartsdmegazaprot.tumblr.com

the ground and the images on the back wall radiate light. In the church space of the Kiscell Museum, Klára Kuchta exhibited her installation Ultra-Violet Energetic Space in 2004. The artist placed slanted UV lamps following the circumference of one ton of salt that had been spread in a circle. Above the ultraviolet ring that was thus created, she placed an orange spherical mobile sculpture. The rapidly rotating sculpture created a mass of light shaped like a torus. The incandescent light placed inside Péter Tamás Halász’ globe-shaped flower-stand entitled Iron Globe (2014) refers to the paradoxical state of our use of sources of energy: currently we obtain most of our energy from underground mining instead of from the sky with the use of solar panels. Andrea Sztojánovits’s work entitled Naked Objects (2013–2015) presents an automated synchronized light and sound production. “Nakedness” refers to the assembled quality visible on the back sides of the objects. The ZAWAR Collective has created an initiatory-like space entitled Mystery Play, Symbol, Absolute, which is also suitable for disturbing one’s sense of tranquillity with the intensification of visual techniques and elements and the alignment of a row of spaces along a central axis, a method used since Ancient Egypt. Tamás Komoróczky’s work Inscription on a Prospective Primeval Skull (2014) models the functioning of consciousness. The installation consists of museum artefacts approximately as old as the artist. The projected motion picture models the model; the neon arrows whirling above the mass of objects convey the dynamic spatial medium. The question of identity is the subject matter of the installation Elgabal / Narkissos by Péter Kecskés. The two videos present two human faces, but

KLÁRA KUCHTAUltra-Violet Energetic Space, 2004

12 February – 11 March 2004 Municipal Gal lery – Kiscel l Museum

Curator: Anikó B. Nagy

they are only perceivable if one of them is blocked out by the viewer. Thus it is our decision whether we choose to watch the calm face or the one that is twitching nervously. In their self-contemplation, the two faces materialize as constant and perpetually changing. The installation Panorama (2015) by Luca Korodi was inspired by the vision of a city at night. In the light and sound environment, which functions with the use of a LED programme, the artist uses the space to give expression to the same subject matter one finds in her paintings. In his work Polyphonic Visual Space (2009), András Mengyán makes geometrical solids transparent and shows the ways in which they permeate one another, thereby inviting the visitor to go beyond the limitations of the usual understanding of three dimensional space. In their work n dimension (2010–2015), Éva Bortnyik and Csaba Tubák research the visualization of virtual dimensions. The minimalist geometric animation makes possible the creation on the glossy surface of the illusion of dimensions not present.

2.2.2. Architecture of the nightJános Sugár’s Electronic Billboard (1993) is an artistic acquisition of the advertisement surface on Blaha Lujza Square. It was made using technology that predated the appearance of LED monitors. In 1997, prior to the reopening of the Mária Valéria Bridge connecting Esztergom and Párkány, Attila Csáji created a monumental light artwork entitled Bridging. The artist connected the two still unconnected abutments with laser lights.

Since 2000, tools used for light painting in public places have become more accessible and the creation of works of art has sometimes been funded by companies or even the state. With her monumental raypainting compositions, Dóra Berkes transforms the overall frontal image of buildings such as the Matáv Headquarters and other spaces in Budapest and Europe. The emergence of light painting in Hungary was closely tied to experimental music events. The desire to make light environments as elements equal in importance to sound within a synthesis of the arts first appeared in the post-performative acid parties of Sándor Bernáth(y). At these parties, the PPML Group projected computer animations done using the most sophisticated technology of the time onto paintings by Bernáth(y) with super 8 film projectors, slide projectors, and early projectors. Following this, at a series of festival-like events organized either by the radio station Tilos or by others at various locations (Frankhegy, Törökbálint), it became possible for these visual works, the beginnings of which had a homemade, amateur character, to acquire a certain professionalism. By the 2010s, we could boast internationally acknowledged stars, such as Viktor Vicsek and László Zsolt Bordos, who were invited to high profile world events. Mapping – animation tailored to and projected on existing building façades – appeared in Hungarian public spaces, and the first competition involving this art form was organized in Hungary in 2010.

BORDOS.ARTWORKS and Invited Art ists: Stereoscopic v ideo mapping at Mapping Fest ival Geneva /

Mapping architectural 3D stéréoscopique au Musée d'Art et d 'Histoire, Genéve

3d Art ists: László Zsolt Bordos, Ivó Kovács, Dániel Szalkó,

András Miklós Balogh

https://youtu.be/n36cpSmKt1c

2.3 Depictions of conceptual lightIn the Baroque era, the golden lights of the other world, on which at one point there was consensus, were often depicted by artists working in Hungary. Xavér Ferenc Falconer depicts the physical space as well (The Death of Saint Joseph, 1764), but in the field created by a strip of clouds the natural world seems to open and reveal the non-physical world behind it, where the golden lights of Empyrean Heaven become visible.The late work by Tihamér Gyarmathy entitled Central Light (1989) is a good example of the depiction of the golden light of Empyrean Heaven in contemporary art. Almost throughout his career, the artist endeavoured to depict the dynamic space of force constructed out of light vectors. In his late works he experimented with depictions of space originating in light and having no material elements. Lóránt Méhes’s work entitled Primeval Light – Pathway (1988–1992) is an expression of the unio mystica, the experience of union with God.

LÓRÁNT MÉHESPrimeval L ight – Pathway, 1988–1992

(detai l )

Scale-model of Albertfalva from the Early Bronze Age

2 5 0 0 B C

On the basis of archaeological excavations and archaeological-astronomical calculations, it has been established that the axes of the houses were oriented towards the winter solstice.

BTM – Aquincum Museum

Urn from the Early Bronze Age

Burial urn from the excavation site of the Csepel cleaning plant. The sides are decorated with symbols of the Sun, which indicates the existence of a cult of the Sun.

BTM – Aquincum Museum

GYULA DOMIÁN: Tracing, 2003

c o l o u r p h o t o d o c u m e n t a t i o n

The installation was made at the K. A. S. Gallery. In this exhibition space, the large windows of which look to the west, the artist fastened threads showing the rays of a certain position of the Sun.

PÉTER KECSKÉS: Totalis Solis Defectio, 1999

T á t i k a C a s t l e , p h o t o d o c u m e n t a t i o n o f a l a n d s c a p e i n s t a l l a t i o n

On the occasion of the total solar eclipse on 11 August 1999, the artist created an installation by placing photocopies, transparencies, and cut-outs in the castle. He created the same “eclipse” on the ground inside the edifice as was taking place in the sky.

LAJOS DARGAY: Little Ephemerides I–II, 1985

l i g h t m o d u l a t o r

The two works from the series show the astrological constellations of the times of birth of specific people.

CSONGOR G. SZIGETI: Sun Pin, 2006

w o o d , e l e c t r o n i c s

The mobile, which operates on a principle similar to that of stepper motors known from astronomical photography, always points towards the current position of the Sun.

KÁROLY HOPP-HALÁSZ: For Robert Smithson (action on the banks of the Danube near Paks), 1973

f i b r e b o a r d , m o u n t e d p h o t o g r a p h s

The composition draws on Robert Smithson’s famous Spiral Jetty. The artist dug the spiral formation in the sand of the bank of the Danube, filled it with flammable material and set it on fire, thus creating a fire spiral.

BLOCK GROUP: It’s Good to Be Bodiless, 1994

p h o t o d o c u m e n t a t i o n

The group created a site-specific installation out of the remains of military equipment found in the Monostor Fort near Komárom. The photo shows a detail of letters made out of dough that have been placed on abandoned rocket mountings and set on fire.

XAVÉR FERENC FALCONER: The Death of Saint Joseph, 1764

o i l o n c a n v a s

In the field created by lines of clouds the natural world seems to open and reveal the non-physical world behind it, where the golden lights of Empyrean Heaven become visible.

BHM – Municipal Gallery

LÓRÁNT MÉHES: Primeval Light – Pathway, 1988–1992

a q u a r e l l e p a i n t o n p a p e r

The series is an expression of the unio mystica, the experience of union with God.

MIKLÓS ERDÉLY: Self-Illumination – Light Swallows Man, 1969

p h o t o

The work addresses the question of the dominance of human reason or intuition, a recurring theme in the artist’s oeuvre.

MIKLÓS ERDÉLY: Hidden Green, 1977

e n v i r o n m e n t , d o c u m e n t a t i o n

The environment constructed in 1977 in the Mór Jókai Cultural House in Budaörs (a suburb of Budapest) was officially open between 11–15 February. The documentation relating to the work indicates that the exhibition was shut down. However, according to the account given by Tamás Olescher, Director of the Cultural House at the time, they did not tear down the installation and allowed those interested to enter. Thanks to Eszter Bartholy’s essay published in 1983 we have a detailed description and an interpretation of the work.

“(Erdély) spread hay over approx. 4/5 of the 12 x 5 metre exhibition space of the Cultural House in Budaörs. At the entrance he left 1/5 of the area uncovered. He painted the door, onto which a spotlight was directed, black, as well as the area around the door, in order to prevent any reflection of the spotlight; a uniform green light prevailed over the space. Approximately two metres from the door, where the hay began, stood a little table with a chair, hidden from view by a folding screen, where the visitor could sit down and reflect on the exhibition by the green light of a small table lamp. On the table was a green pencil and some white paper. Looking further, we could discover a broom and a white circle left clean in the hay. All of this, first and foremost the green light, helped the visitor enter into a semi-dream state, contributing to the extended-character of the objects: the handle of the broomcorn-broom leaning against the wall was lengthened, and the comblike object standing in the centre was also considerably taller than a person. It was composed of approx. 50 pieces of 2,20 m tall, 1 x 1 cm square sticks, and above these was nailed a 1,5 x 1,5 m sheet of masonite, padded with paper and wrapped in tracing paper; in this way, it evoked the impression of a cushiony, floating cloud, buttressed by a latticework. In the back, the wall opposite to the entrance of the space was reinforced with corrugated cardboard running along the entire width of the wall, which like a semi-roof, was at a gentle angle with the wall; it did not reach the hay-enveloped floor. Here the hay was a little bit heaped up – with this, the atmosphere of a forest game feeder was suggested – squatting down, it was possible to nestle inside. If someone crept under the semi-roof and looked up s/he would see at the junction of the corrugated cardboard and the wall, a horizon-like, pure billiard green-coloured band, illuminated with white light. This narrow green band with the white light had a sobering effect: it implied an opening, a window, from the wrapper of half-sleep. The green of the band was an objectified green, in contrast to the green permeating the space as if a general condition.

In the hay, the white circle of 1,5 - 2 metres left uncovered, together with its green reflections, had a magical effect: it appeared like a mirror or a small lake. From time to time, the artist swept from the circle the hay that had fallen inside with the broom with the lengthened handle which was placed there.

When Miklós Erdély was subsequently asked to offer some kind of explanation for the exhibition, he replied that this environment was a figuration which had appeared to him

once as a revelation. The propped-up cloud is identical to a conceptual idea formulated at some time on new art: the balloon, which conveys the aptitude of the irrational disposition of art, floating above, slowly building the foundation, setting brick upon brick, of the most modern scientific world concept. It follows from the Gödel-theorem – and here, this also refers to a supported object – that every proposition is based upon an infinite quantity of presuppositions, and as such, is indefensible. The individual has the aptitude to expose these conjectures and preconceptions. Erdély, now after the fact, would have liked to have written the word »Gödel« onto the cloud because these concepts, even if not entirely consciously, lived in him during the era of Hidden Green. He was well-versed in Russell’s Paradox (on the occasion of one of his lectures, he called upon the audience to recite it to themselves everyday as an evening prayer because that would undermine their own everyday rationalism in such a way that is nearly equal to devotion). The Gödel Theorem, in fact, signifies the resolution of the paradox by establishing that these paradoxes, rather than extinguishing the logic, inevitably follow all kinds of logic. Only such an axiom-system which does not contain its opposite cannot be propounded, and that opposition, which necessarily derives from within the axiom-system, can only be resolved within another system.

Hidden Green strove to liberate the colour from beneath the political burden. The colours unavoidably compromise themselves, and it is not possible to handle them without them brushing against one another’s associational courtyards arranged around them. Even the jury asked what this green represents. Erdély replied that green is the colour of hope, it always has been; and this was not a mere pretext. Even if he was not familiar with Ernst Bloch’s philosophy of hope, he then recognised with joy that Hidden Green was a simple symbol for what Ernst Bloch’s philosophy of hope expressed. The hope concealed within art, according to Ernst Bloch, makes it eternally valid for every era that it always relates to that not yet attained; i.e., it transcends reality. Hidden Green, in this connection, may symbolise art itself.

In such an interpretation, the white circle and its continual maintenance is a salute before pure rationalism. This is the model for the certitude that it is possible to attain art via its rational scientific moral. Science has demarcated its own borders, and at many points, it has arrived at contradiction with itself. There is a need for pure consequentiality towards this, as, in our world, only science is in command. The romantic approach to art employed the confusion of

senses and dazed intuition as artistic methods. Erdély maintains that no matter to what extent the artist hands him/herself over to intuition, on the other hand, s/he must safeguard the dominion of reason.

With Hidden Green, the artist again undermines the existing expectations facing him. According to his conception, all artistic approaches play a part: the traditional artists and contemporary artists alike endeavour to outline, to delineate their style, their circle of interest, as soon as possible – to ensconce themselves within one role, and to represent themselves within it. As he said, s/he in whom there is a certain openness towards transcendence, does not accept this status, this conduct which is easily acceptable for others. On Judgement Day, it is not possible to make your appearance in any sort of costume; whether or not the individual possesses transcendental bearings, in any eventuality, one domain, showing upwards, must be maintained purely – naked, as it were; from this must be swept away the overload of roles. The ancient mystics tried thus to preserve the nakedness of their being, withdrawing from society, leading a sequestered life, they didn’t eat, they didn’t drink, they sat on the peak of a cliff – and this was immediately accepted by society, as a hermit-status. The new cunning endeavours to extinguish meaning within a work, or within a life. It allows the various relations to grow, but it plays them off one against the other, and in this new saturation, it revokes the exclusive validity of the individual connections. Inasmuch as it is not possible to prevent that the meanings come into existence, yet it wants to liberate itself from them, there is no other recourse than to have them extinguish one another. If this intention is not active, then the individual will be captive of his/her own role, even if that is the role of clochard or hermit. If that is so, that the individual extinguishes her/his own roles, the role still, even in opposition – together in opposition to everything – must solve something: the endless process of the extinction of meaning.”

Extract from Eszter Bartholy: „Miklós Erdély: Hidden Green” (Magyar Műhely, Vol. 21., No. 67., 15 July 1983, pp. 64–66.)

Translated by Adele Eisenstein

Miklós Erdély Foundation and Miklós Erdély Bequest

ATTILA CSÁJI: New Vision, New Spatial Experience, 1980

l a s e r - e n v i r o n m e n t , p h o t o d o c u m e n t a t i o n

Together with physicist Norbert Kroó, the artist created the first laser light environment in Hungary, installed at the Hungarian National Gallery, which here presented only a laser interference phenomenon. Only later did they develop and patent the superposition system.

JÁNOS SUGÁR: The Personal and the Sacred, 1984 (2009)

i n s t a l l a t i o n , p h o t o

A 2009 photo documentation of a light installation referring to Miklós Erdély, made for an exhibition of the INDIGO group in 1984 with the same title.

ANDRÁS MENGYÁN: Programmable Space, 1984

The exhibition evoked here with the help of a photograph was an interactive installation controlled by computer programs which synchronized plastic elements lit from the inside, a super 8 film projector, slides, colour photographs and programmed music.

ÁGNES PÉTER: Light Installation, 1994

i r o n , l e a d , p h o s p h o r , l i g h t i n g p r o g r a m m e ; p h o t o d o c u m e n t a t i o n

The work, which was exhibited at the Fészek Gallery, included a lighting programme which projected electric light on sculptural elements that slowly faded and turned on the UV lamp that was placed behind iron plates and lead strips. As it emitted light, the UV lamp made the phosphorescent dust scattered on the ground and the images on the back wall radiate light.

PPML – PRESIDENT’S PALACE MOVIE LIGHTS: Compass Parties, 1995

ZSIGA BERNÁTH, SZABOLCS KRÁLL, ÁRPÁD KOÓS, ANDRÁS JUHÁSZ, GERGŐ ANTAL, KRISZTIÁN MÓCZÁR

PPML – PRESIDENT’S PALACE MOVIE LIGHTS: VJ Game, (1995–1997) 2015

ZSIGA BERNÁTH, SZABOLCS KRÁLL, ÁRPÁD KOÓS, ANDRÁS JUHÁSZ, GERGŐ ANTAL, KRISZTIÁN MÓCZÁR

d e m o n s t r a t i o n p i e c e

Light environments, as elements equal in importance to sound, first appeared in the post-performative acid parties of Sándor Bernáth(y). In the course of these parties, the PPML Group projected computer animations done using the most sophisticated technology of the time onto paintings by Bernáth(y) with super 8 film projectors, slide projectors, and early projectors. With current technology, the VJ Game makes it possible to relive these visual experiences.

w w w . p p m l . h u

KLÁRA KUCHTA: Ultra-Violet Energetic Space, 2004

s a l t , U V t u b e s , l i g h t m o b i l e ; p h o t o d o c u m e n t a t i o n , l e n t i c u l a r l e n s

In the church space of the Kiscell Museum, the artist placed slanted UV lamps following the circumference of one ton of salt that had been spread in a circle. Above the ultraviolet ring that was thus created, she placed an orange spherical mobile sculpture. The rapidly rotating sculpture created a mass of light shaped like a torus.

ATTILA CSÁJI: Mythical Space, 2005

l i g h t e n v i r o n m e n t ; l i g h t b o x , d o c u m e n t a t i o n

In the first decade of the 21st century, Csáji presented numerous monumental laser light environments in which laser scanners were used alongside projectors to project onto semi-transparent suspended screens. The images consisting of lines created by the lasers were elaborations of images distant in time, such as Lapp pictographs.

GYÖRGY GALÁNTAI: A Case of Memory Art Evening of Cool Poets, 2011

i n s t a l l a t i o n , m o n i t o r s , v i d e o p r o j e c t i o n , U V i n s c r i p t i o n s , p l a s m a g l o b e , s o u n d c o l l a g e ; v i d e o d o c u m e n t a t i o n

A reinterpretation of the Cool Slogans project (open-air inscriptions of artists), which was realized in 1994 on Liszt Ferenc Square, this time taking place in the nearby P60 Gallery. The sound environment consists of a collage of works by Liszt and readings of texts by poets and artists, while the light environment is made up of plasma globes and video recordings of it, as well as visually captivating lamps and texts printed on UV-reactive surfaces.

Postcards

First Night Time I l lumination of the Buda Castle, 1930sMuseum of Electr ical Engineering, Budapest

XXXIV. Eucharist ic World Congress, 1938On the occasion of the Eucharist World Congress held in Budapest in 1938, the Gel lért Hi l l was i l luminated with anti-aircraft ref lectors.Museum of Electr ical Engineering, Budapest

Miklós Horthy Bridge, 1938Large-scale l ight art was already in use in publ ic spaces in the interwar period. The newly completed Miklós Horthy Bridge (today: Petőf i Br idge), for example, had a large Pharos, i .e . l ighthouse.Museum of Electr ical Engineering, Budapest

The electronic bi l lboards on Rákóczi Road, 1960s–1970sMuseum of Electr ical Engineering, Budapest

GYÖRGY KEPES: Design for a Light Tower, 1960

m e t a l , g o l d l e a f

The Design for the Light Tower in Baltimore is the first in a series of large-scale designs done as part of a team effort with the desire to transform the environment. At a height of 30 meters, two 50 m high twin steel lighthouses were to have supported a 75 cm diameter light-umbrella covered with gilt bronze sheets. (Based on an essay by Zsuzsanna Éva Bacsó)

Kepes Institute, Eger

MIKLÓS SCHÖFFER: Chronos 8, 1982

l i g h t - t o w e r , p h o t o g r a p h

A kinetic sculpture by the internationally renowned artist set up in a public space in his hometown of Kalocsa.

Museum of Electrical Engineering, Budapest

JÁNOS SUGÁR: Electronic Billboard, 1993

Detail of the electronic billboard on the Newspaper Publishing House Headquarters on Blaha Lujza Square. Every day from 3 to 30 November, 1993 the billboard was lit up with the text given on pages 108–109.

The complete script of the billboard:

WORK FOR FREE / OR DO WORK / YOU WOULD DO FOR FREE

What’s happening? / This machine is writing out my thoughts! / What’s happening? / This machine is writing out my thoughts! / What’s happening? / This machine is writing out my thoughts!

SEEMINGLY LITTLE THINGS / DECIDE / SEEMINGLY LARGE THINGS

YOU WILL COMPREHEND THIS SENTENCE ONCE IT IS TOO LATE

YOU WILL PAY BETTER ATTENTION NEXT TIME

WHAT QUESTION WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO ANSWER?

ATTILA CSÁJI: Bridging, 1997

l a s e r e n v i r o n m e n t ; p h o t o d o c u m e n t a t i o n

The monumental light artwork was done prior to the reopening of the Mária Valéria Bridge, which connects Esztergom and Párkány. The artist connected the two still unconnected abutments with laser lights.

LENKE SZILÁGYI–DÓRA BERKES: Brandenburg Gate (Berlin), 2004

l i g h t p a i n t i n g ; C - p r i n t

LENKE SZILÁGYI–DÓRA BERKES: Erzsébet bridge, 2005

l i g h t p a i n t i n g ; a r c h i v a l p i g m e n t p r i n t

With her monumental light painting compositions, Dóra Berkes transforms the overall frontal image of buildings such as the Matáv Headquarters and other spaces in Budapest and Europe.

LENKE SZILÁGYI–NEONEON: Szentendre Light Main Square, 2005

l i g h t p a i n t i n g ; a r c h i v a l p i g m e n t p r i n t

ZOLTÁN ZOLA FERENCZI: Paint up! competition entry, 2010

m a p p i n g , d o c u m e n t a t i o n

GLOWING BULBS: Light Box, 2009

m a p p i n g , 3 D p r o j e c t i o n , C o l l e g i u m H u n g a r i c u m , B e r l i n

FARKAS FÜLÖP, MÁRTON NOLL, GÁBOR KITZINGER, BALÁZS SARKADI NAGY, TAMÁS ZÁDOR, BALÁZS BRADÁK, ISTVÁN RITTGASSER

VIKTOR VICSEK: Stars, 2012

3 D p r o j e c t i o n , S k y w a y ’ 1 2 F e s t i v a l , T o r u ń , P o l a n d

Members of former visual brigades today are invited to events of international renown and prestige. Mapping – animation tailored for and projected on building façades – has appeared in Hungarian public spaces, and the first competition involving this art form was organized in Hungary in 2010.

PÉTER TAMÁS HALÁSZ: Iron Globe, 2014

o b j e c t

The incandescent light placed inside the globe-shaped flower-stand refers to the paradoxical state of our use of sources of energy: currently we obtain most of our energy from underground mining instead of from the sky with the use of solar panels.

GYULA JÚLIUS: Large Hadron Collider, 2015

i n s t a l l a t i o n

Étienne-Jules Marey was one of the early photographers of movement phases. He was the technological and conceptual forerunner of the motion picture. This work is the inversion of the production of picture sequences Marey worked out experimentally.

GYULA VÁRNAI: Systema Naturae, 2011

i n s t a l l a t i o n , m a t c h b o x e s , v i d e o p r o j e c t i o n

Despite the work’s simple subject matter, it nevertheless grasps and creates a visual philosophical evocation of the processes of disassociation of consciousness based on human perception.

ANDREA SZTOJÁNOVITS: Naked Objects, 2013–2015

o b j e c t , i n s t a l l a t i o n , s o u n d : G á b o r B o r o s i

The objects present an automated synchronized light and sound production. “Nakedness” refers to the assembled quality visible on the back sides of the objects.

ZAWAR COLLECTIVE: Mystery Play, Symbol, Absolute, 2015

c a n v a s , p a p e r , w o o d , a l u m i n i u m , m i x e d m e d i a , L E D

The group has created an initiatory-like space which is also suitable for disturbing one’s sense of tranquillity with the intensification of visual techniques and elements and the alignment of a row of spaces along a central axis, a method used since Ancient Egypt.

LÁSZLÓ CSERNÁTONY-LUKÁCS, ZSOLT GYARMATI, ZSIGMOND LUCZA

LÁSZLÓ ZSOLT BORDOS’S mapping on DÁNIEL ERDÉLY’S Spidron sculpture: Spidron Mapping, 2014

i n s t a l l a t i o n , s t e r e o p r o j e c t i o n o n 3 D o b j e c t

The work consists of a version of mapping (projection onto a building) applied to the gallery environment by utilizing an object created on the basis of the spidron concept discovered by Erdély. Looking through anaglyph 3D glasses, we experience the multiple intensification of the spatial effect.

Concept and 3D animation: LÁSZLÓ ZSOLT BORDOS Spidron sculpture: DÁNIEL ERDÉLY Music: DARKO KOLAR – Dekode

TAMÁS KOMORÓCZKY: Inscription on a Prospective Primeval Skull, 2014

i n s t a l l a t i o n , n e o n a r r o w s , m u s e u m p e d e s t a l s , m u s e u m a r t e f a c t s , v i d e o p r o j e c t i o n

The installation, which consists of museum artefacts approximately as old as the artist, demonstrates the functioning of consciousness. When acquired by museums, these artefacts were considered “contemporary.” The motion picture models the model; the neon arrows whirling above the mass of objects convey the dynamic spatial medium.

LUCA KORODI: Road Image, 2014

w o o d e n s u i t c a s e , l i g h t f i l t e r i n g s h e e t s , L E D

PÉTER KECSKÉS: Elgabal, Narkissos, 2009

v i d e o i n s t a l l a t i o n

The subject of this work is identity. The two videos present two human faces, but they are only perceivable if one of them is blocked out by the viewer. Thus it is our decision whether we choose to watch the calm face or the one that is twitching nervously. In their self-contemplation, the two faces materialize as constant and perpetually changing.

LUCA KORODI: Panorama, 2015

L E D i n s t a l l a t i o n , s o u n d : P é t e r M á r t o n

In the light and sound installation inspired by the vision of a city at night, the artist uses the space to give expression to the same subject matter as one finds in her paintings.

PÉTER TAMÁS HALÁSZ: Highway, 1999 (2010)

o b j e c t

Collection of Dr Imre Balogh

PÉTER TAMÁS HALÁSZ: Light Globe, 2011

o b j e c t

Highway and Light Globe create virtual spaces with the help of the mirror-tunnel principle: one reproduces the scene of night-time driving with the help of rear-view mirrors, the other summons the abstract form of wholeness, the sphere, with the use of non-parallel mirrors.

ERIK MÁTRAI: Rainbow-People, (2012) 2015

l i g h t e n v i r o n m e n t

Looking in from the outside, one sees people inside the space, which is illuminated with light beams, in all the colours of the rainbow.

ÁGNES EPERJESI: Small Prayer, 2010

s l i d e i n s t a l l a t i o n

The colourful text on the wall is illegible until the visitor passes in front of it in a manner that makes the text comprehensible.

ANDRÁS MENGYÁN: Polyphonic Visual Space I, 2009

i n s t a l l a t i o n , p a i n t e d a l u m i n i u m h o l l o w b a r s , U V l i g h t

By making geometrical solids transparent and showing the ways in which they permeate one another, the artist invites the visitor to go beyond the limitations of the usual understanding of three dimensional space.

ÉVA BORTNYIK–CSABA TUBÁK: n dimension, 2010–2015

v i d e o i n s t a l l a t i o n , c o m p u t e r a n i m a t i o n : Á d á m T u b á k

The artists have been creating pictorial representations of virtual dimensions since the 1980s. The geometric animation makes possible the creation on the glossy surface of the illusion of dimensions not present.

JÁNOS BORSOS: Trinity Model, (2007) 2011

l a s e r e n v i r o n m e n t

A sensual and conceptual visualization of the Trinity in which, alongside the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit is symbolized by laser beams.

I m p r e s s

E x h i b i t i o n

MORE LIGHT! Light Environments

New Budapest Gallery1093 Budapest, Fővám tér 11–12. (Bálna Budapest, Közraktár II.)13 April – 23 August 2015

Curator of the exhibition:ENDRE LEHEL PAKSI

Curators of the Budapest Gallery:GÁBOR ANDRÁSI, TAMÁS TÖRÖK, ÁGNES KONKOLY, ZSUZSANNA SZEGEDY-MASZÁK

Exhibition opened by:ISTVÁN HAJDU

Translated by: ZSUZSANNA SZEGEDY-MASZÁK

Graphic design and visual identity: FERENC ELN

Partner institutes and individuals:Budapest History Museum, BudapestAquincum Museum (Budapest)Kiscell Museum – Municipal Gallery (Budapest)Janus Pannonius Museum, PécsKepes Institute, EgerMuseum of Electrical Engineering – Hungarian Museum of Science, Technology and TransportMiklós Erdély Foundation and Miklós Erdély Bequest (Budapest)

Collection of Dr. Imre Balogh (Budapest)Collection of Zsolt Somlói and Katalin Spengler (Budapest)Dr. Anna Endrődi and Emília Pásztor Sebestyén Kodolányi József RostaDalma Eged

Exhibition technicians: ISTVÁN STEFFANITS, SÁNDOR MURÁNYI, MÁRTON MOLNÁR

Technical partners:

CHRISTIE DIGITAL | World-class projection displays and visual solutions for any application.

UNIKAT Bt.STUDIOTECH HUNGARY Kft.

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