Wishing you a Joyous Festive Season

(c) Reka Reisinger

InterUrbanArt wishes you a peaceful, glorious holiday season in the company of your loved ones -
and for the New Year, everything that you wish for.

While you are relaxing over the holidays (maybe with your new MacBook, iMac, or iPhone), please peruse links to works by two artists that InterUrbanArt will be working with in 2009, in addition to Reka Reisinger, Nandor Losonci and the Budapest Art Factory.

Maximillian Toth

Erika Somogyi

Attila Csörgo takes the prize

Hungarian artist Attila Csörgo, a creator of "visual machines" is the winner of the €25,000 prize awarded by the Kunststiftung NRW, a German cultural foundation created by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The fourth annual Nam June Paik Award is a juried honor intended "to keep alive the still powerful creative energy of the work of Nam June Paik both in Germany and overseas."

http://www.namjunepaikaward.de/

Attila Csörgö is one of the most prominent contemporary artists practising in Hungary today. His works are immediately entertaining but raise profound questions about how we construct our vision of the world.

Attila works with lights and photography, kinetic structures and changeable geometrical forms. Csörgo presents the reality of systems and phenomena that we normally do not admit. By observing ordinary phenomena under extraordinary conditions, Csörgo creates experiments, often surprising and entertaining, to foreground questions about perception and how we construct our vision of the world. Slanting Water (1995) is Csörgo’s key early work, almost foundational for all his later practice. In this photograph, two glasses filled with water sit on a table. The photograph appears to have been artificially altered, as the water slants in opposite directions in the two glasses. This effect is not an illusion, however; it was created by spinning the table on which the glasses and camera all stood, so that the water was pictured in a centrifuge.

Congratulations, Attila!

Attila Csorgo Official Website

Reka Reisinger at Real Art Ways...Part 2

Artist Talk...Thursday 2 October...6pm

Reka Reisinger's exhibition at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT will be open until Sunday 12 October.

On Thursday 2 October, she will be giving an Artist Talk at 6pm.

Below are images from the "Second" Opening Night (Thursday 18 September) at Real Art Ways. The "Special Guests" were Reka's cutouts, which proved to be hugely popular among the large crowd gathered for the evening.

Reka Reisinger at Real Art Ways

Reka Reisinger's show at Real Art Ways opened on a picture perfect summer evening in Hartford. Judging by the reactions of the large crowd, the opening was a huge success. Further information about how to get to Real Art Ways, gallery hours, etc. can be found at:

www.realartways.org

The show is open until 12 October. Reka will be giving an Artist Talk on 2 October at 6pm.

Press clippings, comments and reviews regarding the show are here:

www.bigredandshiny.com

www.courant.com

www.americantowns.com

www.flickr.com/photos/meghandahn

www.artslibrary.com

Romania 1-Hungary 0

No, you haven't logged in to the Art is More Important than Football Euro 2008 championship blog by mistake. But while we're on the subject---of the two countries, only Romania is fielding a team in the tournament. To a Hungarian football fan, or perhaps even to a proud Hungarian who isn't a football fan, that's sad news in and of itself. But to a Hungarian Art is More Important than Football enthusiast, the following news is even more disturbing:

There is now a gallery in Chelsea specializing in Romanian contemporary art.

http://www.slaggallery.com/

I of course wish nothing but the best to the founders and artists of the gallery. Simon Watson's eyes are most often very good at spotting the latest trends in art, and bringing a Central European country's art to the NY art world's attention is exactly what InterUrbanArt is striving to do.

My disappointment is simple and unbiased: Romania has beaten Hungary to the prize of establishing an artistic beachhead in New York.

I haven't yet been able to learn how Slag Gallery came to be. If anyone has any information or back story about that, I would be extremely grateful if you can pass it along.

Meanwhile, there is much work to be done to tie this game.

These recent paintings by Zsolt Bodoni are perfect shots straight at the goal, practically unstoppable.

Reka Reisinger at Real Art Ways

InterUrbanArt is very pleased to announce that Reka Reisinger will be displaying her work at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT this August. The exhibition opens on 21 August and runs through 14 September.

Real Art Ways is one of the leading alternative multi-disciplinary arts organizations in the United States.

Their website can be found here:

http://www.realartways.org

Hungarian Government Establishes Contemporary Collection

Hungarian Culture minister Istvan Hiller announced in early March that the ministry will provide up to 50 million Hungarian forints (EUR 192,000/USD 300,000) each year for a new contemporary art collection. Under a three-year agreement, the ministry will contribute one forint for every two forints donated by the business sector.

The ministry's funding comes with a condition, however: that the contemporary art collection spend 5–10 million forints of the annual funding on works by artists involved in a government-backed scholarship system.

This development is certainly a postive step towards establishing awareness of contemporary art in Hungary.

InterUrbanArt will, through several channels, lobby to place artists that it is working with in this new collection.

Budapest in New York

If you are in New York City this weekend for the art fairs, by all means stop by and see the Budapest Art Factory booth at the Art Now Fair at Hotel 30/30 located at 30 East 30th Street. This is the first time a Hungarian contemporary art gallery has exhibited at a New York art fair.

Works by Zsolt Bodoni, Dora Juhasz, Marta Kucsora, and Mamikon Yengibarian are on display. Be sure to check out the installation by Agnes Verebics in the lobby.

http://www.artnowfair.com

Budapest Rising

InterUrbanArt and the Budapest Art Factory are pleased to announce that the work of Zsolt Bodoni is currently featured in an article in Architectural Digest:

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/homes/homes/2008/03/summers_article

Zsolt's work will also be displayed later this year in London at fa projects in a show curated by esteemed art critic Jane Neal.

For further information on Zsolt's work, please contact Edward Mocsi at InterUrbanArt...mocsi@optonline.net

Congratulations to Zsolt and Dianne Brown, founder of the Budapest Art Factory.

In the Finest Tradition of André Kertész, Robert Capa & Brassaï

The work of Nandor Losonci is a paean to his legendary Hungarian compatriots. He is currently working on a travelogue of photographs of major European cities viewed from the perspective of, or inspired by, famed authors associated those cities.

Unknown Contemporary Legend

"Beuys Strangling", 1980, 200 x 140 cm

Karoly Kelemen is one of the seminal figures of Hungarian contemporary art. His "eraser paintings", created mainly in the 1970s and 80s (he re-visited the style in the early 2000s), are prime examples of "blue chip" Hungarian contemporary art that is almost entirely unknown internationally outside of a handful of inner circles.

These paintings are graphite on canvas, and on average measure 2 meters x 3 meters (6 ft. x 9ft). Kelemen "paints" them by erasing.

Karoly Kelemen is represented by a very well-respected Budapest gallery but, amazingly, has no international representation.

More information can be found about his work at http://www.memoart.eu/. Please mention Edward Mocsi/InterUrbanArt when contacting the gallery.