cseke szilárd

The focus of Szilárd Cseke's multi-media exhibition DROP is - in addition to the painting material - the artist's latest electronically manipulated "found object" space and sound installation. The artist draws our attention to the role of water in the search for the possibility of re-energizing after the final collapse. Water, if it exists, as a vehicle for life, finds a place in the synthetic by-products of civilisation. Its dripping sound is also a melody of the possibility of life. The composer and musical assistant of the electronic music that permeates the whole exhibition is electronic sound artist Gábor Varsás, a sound collector of our dwindling natural waters and springs. The painting part of Szilárd Cseke's exhibition is a series of large-scale abstract canvases, a visual representation of absolute painterly surfaces that originate from gesture painting or abstraction. The system of coloured paints, resulting from the deliberately haphazard use of tools, applied almost randomly to the canvases, evokes our memory of a seemingly untouched nature, a wooded landscape. In seeing the images, we thus transform the painterly, informal structures into a personally experienced reality. Szilárd Cseke, modifying his earlier creative practice, has recently incorporated artificial intelligence into the design phase of his paintings. But it is clear that "AI" technology in art cannot be understood as modernity without the intertwining of the natural environment and human thinking. The concept of Cseke's exhibition DROP is a critique of the virtualisation of the knowledge of nature by a civilisation that imagines itself as modern. A particular interpretation is given to a question the artist had asked long before in the title of one of his 2007 exhibitions: "where is the forest I am painting?"

These woodcuts are visual interpretations of the importance of natural and economic balance, and vice versa, interpretations of issues of imbalance through graphic techniques.

For me, the inspiration came from Josh Fox's 2010 film "GasLand".

The film explores the fracking oil extraction industry and the serious environmental consequences it entails.

Storyline:

It is happening all across America-rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from an energy company wanting to lease their property. Reason? The company hopes to tap into a reservoir dubbed the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas." Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground-a hydraulic drilling process called "fracking"-and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower.

Back ground infomations:

https://greendex.hu/palagaz-amerikai-palagaz/

The exhibition SILENCE-20 by artist Szilárd Cseke will be held at Hegyvidék Gallery from 6 October to 5 November 2020.

Curator: Judit Kallós art historian

Opening speech by Zsolt Petrányi, art historian

"The works were created in succession, through various experiments with materials and surface treatment. The painter first created on the canvas or the support of the painting surfaces of colour, which are either pure or show a mixture of layers of paint. This mixing is mechanical, resulting from the colours being dragged across each other. The aesthetics of colour, or the blending of colour, is a delight in itself, a system that is best viewed up close. In each painting we see a different interplay of colours, which gives them their different character. The next layer in the works are dark bands or fragmented line structures, either painted or applied as an imprint on the surface of the paint. In some of the works, the networks created in this way evoke a concrete image, a perspectival fabric of forest trees, which Cseke helps us to recognise by using bright splashes of colour. Sometimes the grid of lines becomes abstract, sometimes it evokes the shape of a head, or sometimes it reminds me of the tracing of stars moving in time. On the surface, the drawing leads to associations that concretize the underlying play of colour, leading to a parallel with reality. But there is a range to these works that the viewer misses. It is there, but cannot be seen. You might think about it, but if you're not familiar with the world of fine art, I'd say you wouldn't dare think about it. It is, after all, a game of chance in the process of creation, which seems to contradict conscious artistic behaviour. But the point is that, as the artist tries to influence the material, he allows the material to influence the birth of the image. In other words, there are surfaces that may not turn out as imagined, but may turn out better, more spectacularly, with effects that surprise the artist. The image is therefore not only made, but also born."

The quoted text was spoken by art historian Zsolt Petrányi at the vernissage of Szilárd Cseke's exhibition "SILENCE-20" on 6 October 2020 at the Hegyvidék Gallery.

Virtual tour SILENCE-20 Exhibition of artist Szilárd Cseke

The exhibition SILENCE-20 by Munkácsy Prize-winning artist Szilárd Cseke will be held at Hegyvidék Gallery from 6 October to 5 November 2020, and thanks to digital technology it can be viewed online if you were unable to visit us in person.By clicking on the link below, you can take a 360-degree panoramic online tour of Szilárd Cseke's vibrant, vividly coloured paintings and steel sculptures evoking forest interiors and abstract works inspired by nature motifs, from the comfort of your armchair. During the virtual tour, you can stop in front of a painting, zoom in and out using the "+" and "-" buttons, and examine a work in even higher resolution, looking at the exciting surface design and structure of the painting. By clicking on the section with the pictogram "camera", you can listen to a short introduction in which the exhibiting artist shares some of his thoughts on the works on display and the concept of the exhibition. Have fun!

The 360-degree online tour was created by virtuARTtour.

https://virtualiskiallitas.eu/hg-cseke-szilard-2020/

The paintings at the exhibition at Brussels were made using a special method. The artist applied paint that dries rigid on a foil surface, using a threaded stem and an intubation tube. These arranged the paint due to their profile into neat strips. After the paint dried the artist crinkled the foil, this resulted in the paint falling off at certain places. The artist fixed the detached paint into a colourless acrylic paste. The end result is a unique, abstract pattern, which is led by chance like human fate. The detached paint can be likened to the migrant, who settles in a new context that is capable of supporting him. Also there is paint that sticks easier to the crumpled foil and which does not „migrate” to a new picture.

On the paintings which lend the title to the exhibition the paint is applied vertically. In the case of the series Faces, the paint is applied in a portrait-like format. The shape can be recognised as a back figure, which according to Tillmann József „shows almost everything: the shape of the head, the posture, the place where the body is (…) it makes the character traits of the depicted visible. Only the face remains hidden.”[1]

[1] Tillmann J. A.: Körvonalaink kirajzolódása, in: Pannonhalmi szemle 2015/2. https://muveszetelmelet.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/tillmann-j-a-korvonalaink-kirajzolodasa/

A section of the exhibition is titled Spaces, this consists of a three channel video and an installation which is mounted on the wall. These were created in connection to the 2015 spatial installation of the artist which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale titled Sustainable Identities. In the short film black and white canvases serve as the background for white polystyrene spheres that are being spray painted with black and white paint. The spray paint colours the spheres and due to the propelling qualities of the gas, it also moves the spheres causing marks to appear on the canvas. Some spheres stick to the canvas, while other spheres collide, leave a mark on each other or simply stick together. The orbit of these spheres creates an abstract pattern, which is based on chance, just like human fate. Also on the white canvas only the black colour stands out, and this shows the persuasive power of context and how human perception is dependent on context also. Within the frames of the video there are films recorded from different camera positions on three TV-screens. 3x2 meter canvases, which appear in the film, are mounted on the wall with the help of wall brackets, complimented with spheres of different sizes. The artwork can be categorised as process art, if we don’t connect it to process art made in the sixties and seventies, which is concerned with self-reference and the reflection on the process of making. This term can be justifiably used if we also add the layer of social awareness and the conscious use of socially engaging topics.

 The exhibition unit Spaces consists of a three-channel video artwork, and the two painted canvases that were a direct result of the film. These were created in relation to the introductory art piece that represented the work of Szilárd Cseke and Hungary at the 2015 Venice Biennale. This exhibition was titled Sustainable Identities. The two paintings and the video art work from Spaces forms a unit. The paintings were first exhibited in Brussels, the video was made public at the website of the biennale.

In the short film white polystyrene spheres are in front of a white canvas and are spray painted with white and black colours. The spray stains the spheres and due to the propelling momentum created by the power-gas, the spheres leave a mark on the surface of the canvas as well. Certain balls stick to the canvas because of the paint, other spheres collide, leave a trace on each other or even stick together. The orbit of these spheres creates an abstract pattern, which is based on chance, just like human fate. Also on the white canvas only the black colour stands out, and this shows the persuasive power of context. Looking at the divided screen the visitor can see that the video was shot from different camera positions. The recorded action which results in the video is also represented by the actual exhibition of the two paintings including the spray paint and the spheres. This artwork can be regarded as process art, but here on the contrary of the tradition of process art, the artwork rises above simple self-reference, or the reference of the art making process, and also raises large-scale social issues.

The paintings at the exhibition at Brussels were made using a special method. The artist applied paint that dries rigid on a foil surface, using a threaded stem and an intubation tube. These arranged the paint due to their profile into neat strips. After the paint dried the artist crinkled the foil, this resulted in the paint falling off at certain places. The artist fixed the detached paint into a colourless acrylic paste. The end result is a unique, abstract pattern, which is led by chance like human fate. The detached paint can be likened to the migrant, who settles in a new context that is capable of supporting him. Also there is paint that sticks easier to the crumpled foil and which does not „migrate” to a new picture.

On the paintings which lend the title to the exhibition the paint is applied vertically. In the case of the series Faces, the paint is applied in a portrait-like format. The shape can be recognised as a back figure, which according to Tillmann József „shows almost everything: the shape of the head, the posture, the place where the body is (…) it makes the character traits of the depicted visible. Only the face remains hidden.”[1]

[1] Tillmann J. A.: Körvonalaink kirajzolódása, in: Pannonhalmi szemle 2015/2. https://muveszetelmelet.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/tillmann-j-a-korvonalaink-kirajzolodasa/

A section of the exhibition is titled Spaces, this consists of a three channel video and an installation which is mounted on the wall. These were created in connection to the 2015 spatial installation of the artist which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale titled Sustainable Identities. In the short film black and white canvases serve as the background for white polystyrene spheres that are being spray painted with black and white paint. The spray paint colours the spheres and due to the propelling qualities of the gas, it also moves the spheres causing marks to appear on the canvas. Some spheres stick to the canvas, while other spheres collide, leave a mark on each other or simply stick together. The orbit of these spheres creates an abstract pattern, which is based on chance, just like human fate. Also on the white canvas only the black colour stands out, and this shows the persuasive power of context and how human perception is dependent on context also. Within the frames of the video there are films recorded from different camera positions on three TV-screens. 3x2 meter canvases, which appear in the film, are mounted on the wall with the help of wall brackets, complimented with spheres of different sizes. The artwork can be categorised as process art, if we don’t connect it to process art made in the sixties and seventies, which is concerned with self-reference and the reflection on the process of making. This term can be justifiably used if we also add the layer of social awareness and the conscious use of socially engaging topics.

SPACES

Process art painting programme and video film.

The works in this group are part of my multimedia series exploring the theme of identity. The painting process captured in the video reflects on a specific identity crisis in Central and Eastern Europe. The ideological and political currents in this part of 20th century Europe, too intense and too frequent, made feelings and concepts of identity difficult to grasp by the end of the century. The democratic turn after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the emergence of political parties offering different models of identity created a kind of apoliticism in the more experienced generations of society. The fear of such changes is a striking explanation for what is happening today.

I placed light polystyrene balls on the horizontally stretched black or white canvas or cardboard. I painted the originally white balls with spray paints filled with black and white paint. The process causes the spheres to be blown once with black paint and once with white paint. As long as there is little paint on the surface of the spheres, they roll easily under the pressure of the propellant in the spray and leave paint streaks behind. As the paint on the surface of the spheres thickens, their kinetic energy becomes more and more difficult. The properties of the materials used in the toy interact with each other. Offering a metaphorical interpretation of the spectacle. The solvent in the paints slowly dissolves the polystyrene surface of the balls, changing their centre of gravity and their shape. The dyeing process continues until the balls are immobilised by the dye. I consider the painted playground, canvas as an autonomous painting, my creation.

Szilárd Cseke, Something Must Be Done,

Barabás Villa Galéria,

1122 Budapest, Városmajor utca 44.

https://barabasvilla.hu/cseke-szilard-kiallitasmegnyitoja-kepekben/

Exhibition of Szilárd Cseke at the Virág Judit Gallery

09-30 September 2009

H-1055 Budapest, Falk Miksa utca 30.

Exhibition curated by Zita Sárvári

Opening speech by László Beke, art historian

“Painting a landscape is an extremely challenging, Sisyphean task. Especially in 2005. It is fair to say that with the avant-garde, landscape painting has become obsolete, there is nothing more to say about the subject after the pioneers of modernism. Painting landscapes today is an irredeemably epigone gesture that easily lures the unwary artist into the trap of pleasing appearances and attractive mood painting. Szilárd Cseke elegantly avoids this trap. He is not captivated by the primary spectacle, he is not interested in the natural phenomenon embodied in light, colour, form, sounds and scents, but in the possibility of illusion itself, the creation of illusion. His landscapes are subtly balanced between abstraction and figuration, ingeniously combining sensuous, homogeneous colour surfaces with narrative visual elements. A forest edge dappled with mystical patches of light after the rain, or a magical garden dotted with flowering trees, is a tribute to painterly matéria, a symphony of translucent monochrome blues and luminous greens. Cseke's painterly attitude is at the same time a generational creed, the fundamental idea of which is the rehabilitation of painterly beauty, the defiant embrace of 'pleasure painting'. Returning to his old role as a painter, he is an illusionist of experience, and his paintings are objects of relaxation and meditation.”

By Emese Révész, art historian

SPECIAL PLACE ABOUT THE PAINTINGS OF SZILÁRD CSEKE

ARTMAGAZIN, Archive from 2013-10-12 Issue 10 - pages 78-81

SZILÁRD CSEKE'S EXHIBITION

20. July 2005. – 23. August

Curator: Éva Molnár art historian

Opening speech by: Emese Révész

Fészek Artists' Club

Kertész u. 36, 1072 Budapest

Extract from the opening speech by Emese Révész, art historian:

“Painting a landscape is an extraordinary challenge, a Sisyphean task. Especially in 2005. It's a challenge, a difficult task, and it's a challenge to paint landscapes. Painting landscapes today is an irredeemably epigone gesture that easily lures the unwary artist into the trap of pleasing appearances and attractive mood painting. Szilárd Cseke elegantly avoids this trap. He is not captivated by the primary spectacle, he is not interested in the natural phenomenon embodied in light, colour, form, sounds and scents, but in the possibility of illusion itself, the creation of illusion. His landscapes are subtly balanced between abstraction and figuration, ingeniously combining sensuous, homogeneous colour surfaces with narrative visual elements. A forest edge dappled with mystical patches of light after the rain, or a magical garden dotted with flowering trees, is a tribute to painterly matéria, a symphony of translucent monochrome blues and luminous greens. Cseke's painterly attitude is at the same time a generational creed, the fundamental idea of which is the rehabilitation of painterly beauty, the defiant embrace of 'pleasure painting'. Returning to his old role as a painter, he is an illusionist of experience, and his paintings are objects of relaxation and meditation.”

“Cseke's unpretentious experiential painting has been enriched with layers of pictorial philosophy in his latest forest cycle. His more recent works 'simulating' forest interiors play masterfully with the illusion of perspective space. Their point of view draws the viewer into their space more than ever before. The forest interiors, composed in undereye perspective, evoke the romantic, heroic prefigurations of the subject, while his large triptych draws the viewer into his own space. His process is an involuntary echo of the heightened illusionism of 19th-century panoramas, but his loss of visual gloss also evokes familiar memories of the giant poster in the housing estate. However, as we move closer, the plane of the image opens up to a new range of interpretations, the illusion is broken down into 'rasters' and the image reveals its intrinsic quality, which is nothing other than the expansive flow of painterly material. It is at this point that the behind-the-scenes secrets of the loss of gloss are revealed: the abstract painterly surface worked over with basic gestures, drips and scraped surfaces. Layered on top of this are the striking, space-illusion patches of monochrome lacquer paint.”

Published in ARTMAGAZIN ONLINE

SPECIAL SITE

ABOUT SZILÁRD CSEKE'S PAINTINGS

Archive at 2013-10-12 Issue 10 - pages 78-81

https://www.artmagazin.hu/articles/archivum/16e020a5d5a81f0940638264d4a44e43

Snippets from the Zselic

Vaszary Gallery, Kaposvár, Hungary

05 April - 03 June 2023 Curated by Lilla Pajger-Kovács, art historian.

Exhibiting artists: Szilárd Cseke, Eszter Csurka, Dóra Vanda Demcsák, Zsófia Hermann, Gábor Koós, Flóra Nyári, Borbála Szanyi, Csilla Szilágyi- Tamás Herczeg, Melinda Varga

The renovated Vaszary Gallery will open with a contemporary art exhibition reflecting on the natural values and main tourist attractions of the Zselic Landscape Protection Area. Through the mediums of painting, graphics, sculpture, glass art and video, we will connect with the forested area on the border of Somogy and Baranya Counties. The works are inspired by nature and the ever-changing and transforming relationship between man and his environment. The thought-provoking works also refer to environmental problems such as the gradual loss of pristine nature, global warming, forest fires caused by climate change, etc. One of the keys to a solution is to rebuild the harmony between man and nature. The aim of the exhibition is to build a bridge in the language of contemporary art, to reach out to the people of the Zselic region and to raise their awareness of their cultural and natural values, which we all share the responsibility to preserve and preserve.

"The Vaszary Gallery is a prestigious place, which has hosted excellent exhibitions in the past decades," said the Director General of the Hungarian National Museum. László L. Simon said about the opening exhibition that the visitors have been presented with a very exciting subject: the great merit of the exhibition is that it shows how the landscape around us and the relationship between man and nature can be depicted."

Szilárd Cseke's solo exhibition in the Rugógyár Gallery

On 5 September 2019 at 19:00, the first exhibition of the Autumn season of the Rugógyár Gallery will open, where you can see fresh shoots from Szilárd Cseke's Forest series. The exhibition is curated by Tünde Sipos, art historian. The exhibition is open until 6 October.

In his large-scale oeuvre, Szilárd Cseke's conceptual space and light installations, mobile objects, process works, figurative and non-figurative paintings create an exciting synergy.

Deeper In, the Gallery presents new works from the Forest series, which has already won acclaim from art collectors and professionals alike. The woodland theme, so characteristic of the artist's 'joy painting', is a spectacular representation of his profound inspirations. The abstract forest paintings play with perception in space, drawing the viewer into the depths of 'the abundance', where the bravura details inherent in abstraction flow through the experiential nature of painting. The aura of the paintings, inherent in the composition, transcends the physical boundaries of the canvas, unfolding and inviting the viewer to explore deeper layers. The paintings are accompanied in the exhibition by sculptures that are plastic embodiments of the forest theme. The spatial works bear the characteristics of both sculpture and painting: the light, jaggedly openworked steel surfaces, the system of light and shadow in the lighting, and the delicate chiselled texture enhance the progressive overall effect.

The exhibition also includes selected works from the "When he comes home" series, which was already presented in the Budapest Gallery in spring 2019. The artist depicts the events of our compatriots returning home from their stay abroad with a touching sensitivity and subtle humour.

The exhibition is open to the public:

5 September to 6 October 2019.

Szilárd Cseke is a Munkácsy Award-winning artist whose works are in collections around the world. He is the recipient of the Hungarian Academy of Rome and the Derkovits State Fine Arts Scholarships and the public may know him from the Venice Biennale 2015, where he represented Hungary with great international success.

Exhibition of Szilárd Cseke artist

19 October - 23 November 2022

Barabás Villa, Budapest

The artist's latest artistic programme and the mood of his works during this period were specifically designed to reflect the aura of the former neoclassical villa of painter Miklós Barabás and its surroundings. One could also say that what we can see here is "site-specific landscape painting", not in a classicist style, of course, but reflecting on the conditions of nature and our time, using contemporary painting tools to depict living nature, which is becoming increasingly valuable.

TOMATO BUDAPEST

Óbudai Társaskör Galéria

1036 Budapest, Kiskorona utca 7.

Curator: Gábor Andrási art historian

1998

Szipőcs Krisztina: Lágyított paradicsom, – Cseke Szilárd tárgyairól. Budapest Paradicsom (kat.), 1998

“The painting and the mobile sculpture I have never seenso closely related as close as Szilárd tomato series. Air-inflated tomatoes in all the fully compliant with all standards, uniformly sized, garish colour, but otherwise tasteless, 'inflated', i.e. manipulated, produce. But herethis is not quite the case. The series has its roots in Italy. It was there that Szilárd realised the fulfilment of his childhood ambition to be a gardener. The possibility of an artistic interpretation. As a scholarship holder at the Hungarian Academy in Rome, he once went to the nearest market, Campo dei Fiori (a flower market where vegetables, fruit, spices and fish are sold), and bought himself a packet of tomato seeds. On his return home, he planted the seeds in pots in his studio on Bródy Sándor Street, and six out of ten of them sprouted (according to those who work in agriculture by profession). As an artist, he captured the process from seed stage to harvest in indigo blue paintings.”

Excerpt from Tibor Zielinski

Journal of the Hungarian Art Foundation 2005, no 10

Vadnai Gallery, Budapest

Szilárd Cseke

PANORAMIC PLOT FOR SALE

08 May 2002 - 08 June 2002

Opening : 7 May 2002, 19:00

H-1051 Budapes,. Mérleg u. 12.

Opening speech by Zsolt Petrányi, art historian

“The inspiration of photography is a very common phenomenon today. What is the original image, is already changing, and so is the artist. He is referring to the world of magazines and the way they are where pages with more information are replaced by pages with less detail. are alternated in order to strike the right balance in the reader's brain between reason and emotion. Also in this exhibition This is a unique presentation: a serious statement is juxtaposed with a looser, more sensual a figurative work, an organic one. The human attitude towards nature of nature.

But photorealism is alien to these works because, unlike his contemporaries, Cseke's oil on canvas paintings are not at all a critique of the photographic work, but rather an attempt to restore to painting what has always been his, namely, a sense of the mother nature and sensuality. In short, in these pictures we are not only looking at what he depicts, but also at how he depicts. His brushwork is pastose, his professional assurance is demonstrated by his thick use of materials. The resolution of details, leaves, lights, translucency, optical colour blends is brilliant and humorous, ingenious. It's good to see, we've been waiting a long time for this medium to rise, without losing any of its conceptual character. Well, witness this here the dear viewer.”

Zsolt Petrányi, Új Művészet XIII/ Issue 7, excerpt

My series of paintings presented here was first shown at a private pop up exhibition on the ground floor of an office building in downtown Budapest /Krisztina Pallace Office Building/.My series of paintings entitled "Race of Hope" focuses on those who have had to leave their homes, disappeared or become politically invisible. They are the most socially and economically vulnerable and marginalised members of society. They are the losers in the power games of the day. They are the ones who suffer 'social death'. Social death is the state in which people are not fully accepted by society as human beings. It refers to when someone is treated as if they are dead or non-existent. A selection of these images was shown at the PREVIEW BERLIN Art Fair in 2011 and at the VIENNAFAIR in Vienna in 2012, together with a related mobile art installation.