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MI
Andreas FOGARASI
Christian Kosmas MAYER
9 September – 6 November
Please visit the exhibition according to the current health precautions.
the exhibition can be visited online
https://vintage.hu/exhibitions/mi-fogarasi-mayer
and during opening hours
tuesday-friday 2-6pm
Vintage Galéria’s current exhibition shows the works of Andreas FOGARASI (1977) and Christian Kosmas MAYER (1976). The examination of the morphology of the past and present constitutes a basic element of both Fogarasi and Mayers’ art practice. The works of both artists share the element of preservation and the strategy of reprocessing, an examination of the relationship between creativity and power, and the raising of awareness about entropy, which can also be experienced in culture. In a world that is falling apart, Fogarasi and Mayer seek the possibility of slowing down and of intermediate positions – between a fixed vantage point and shifting perspectives, accidental discoveries and methodical research, dismantling and construction. Their present exhibition, which takes details that have been buried or forgotten and uses them as a starting point, explores such general concept pairs as concealment and visibility, erasure and rewriting, or the disappearance and preservation of knowledge. Both artists are interested in the invisible structures of, for instance, power or time, as well as in the mutability or constancy of frameworks and supporting elements – and, by taking these as a premise, the intersection of the past and present.
In the latest pieces of Andreas Fogarasi’s series titled Envelop, we see graphic works from the sixties engaging the themes of the Hungarian Workers’ Movement. Fogarasi frames these prints, formally intended for the purpose of aesthetic or ideological education, in variously sized, hand-folded copper containers. His gesture invokes the past position of graphic artists, along with their ideas and relationships, in the present time; the once-complicated dilemmas of mission and conviction, compliance and artistic freedom are still current. Christian Kosmas Mayer’s carved pine trunks were unearthed in 2012, after the demolishing process of Berlin’s Palast der Republik, a symbolic building of the GDR, erected in the seventies. They were originally submerged in the swampy soil 300 years prior, supporting the enormous structure of the Prussian Berlin Palace that once stood there. Mayer purchased some of these now functionless supporting elements at an auction. Based on photos of the Atlas figures that were once adorning the ornate stairwell of the palace, he had the sculpture details carved into the pillars in a smaller, rougher form. The metamorphoses of the representational patterns of past systems become especially timely today in cases where the powers that be, assuming a specific perspective of the past, dress their new buildings in “old clothes” and use them as tools for politicising history.
József Mélyi
Andreas FOGARASI (1977) studied architecture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and fine art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Through his videos, photographs, installations and sculptures – influenced by Minimal and Conceptual Art as much as by architectural thinking – Fogarasi explores the act of showing, representations of power and identity in public space, and the relationship between culture and collective memory. He lives and works in Vienna, but is also involved in the Hungarian art scene. In 2007, he won the Golden Lion Prize at the Venice Biennale given to the best national pavilion with his video installation entitled Kultur und Freizeit [Culture and Leisure], reflecting to the changed cultural and social meanings of the community spaces in Budapest. Fogarasi’s work is consequently represented in international exhibitions, his solo show entitled Nine Buildings. Stripped was held at the Kunsthalle Vienna in 2019.
www.instagram.com/andreasfogarasi
Christian Kosmas MAYER (1976) studied at the College of Fine Arts in Saarbrücken and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. His cross- media works and projects incorporating cultural, political and social questions explore the workings of collective historical memory and personal memory, as well as the mechanisms of retaining and rediscovering information. His curatorial and editorial practice is also important, since 2002, he has been co-editor of the magazine with changing names based on the font used (www.ztscrpt.net). Although Mayer lives and works in Vienna, Hungarian gallery-goers have already had a chance to view his works at the exhibition ABCity curated by Andreas Fogarasi and held at the Trafó Gallery in 2003. With his works, he maintains a constant presence on the international art scene; his solo show titled Aeviternity was held at the mumok in Vienna in 2019.
www.christiankosmasmayer.site
1053, Budapest, Magyar utca 26.
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