A. Nagy Gábor: Grammar of Glamour

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An exhibition revived from the Godot Gallery's original WordPress archive.

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Van, aki bélyeget gyűjt – acrylic on canvas, 100 × 140 cm, 2008

Godot Gallery cordially invites you.

A. Nagy Gábor

Grammar of Glamour

for the exhibition titled.

Opening: 2008 on 5 November at 20 o'clock.

The Godot Gallery showcased A. Nagy Gábor’s paintings, created with a compressed painting method, in 2002 and 2004: at the time the artist broke down his own photographs and images he found in magazines or on the internet into tiny frames, much like digital image creation, leaving the visual spectacle to the viewer’s perception and imagination.

A. Nagy Gábor’s canvases pair classical stylistic elements without restraint, as optical colour mixing can even lead into impressionism, the raster problem in the 60s and 70s, and the choice of subject matter may even evoke pop‑art. In his works, the fleeting sensations of the subjective experience and the anonymous outer world melt away in the rendering and in the emptiness of narration, in the colourful cascade of tiny squares. Because recognising the details of the representation often requires heightened effort, A. Nagy Gábor leaves space for the viewer’s creative imagination, playfully inviting them into the creative process. In the course of this particular interactivity, his visual world becomes complete when supplemented by the viewer’s own memories. That completeness, the glamour that assembles perfectly from afar, however collapses like a mirage when viewed from closer proximity.

MMS II. acrylic, canvas, 70x100 2003

MMS III. acrylic, canvas, 70 x 100 2003

A. Nagy Gábor has recently taken to painting letters. The refined mosaic structure created from the colourful letters of found text fragments comes together as a painting. Since 2005 he, the Berlin‑based artist, has consistently reached back to the figures of twentieth‑century art history he admires, such as the works of Georg Grosz, Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, Paul Delvaux, Joseph Kossuth and Sigmar Polke.

The Bare Minimum, acrylic on canvas, 100 × 140 2008

The starting point of the newest paintings we are showing in our gallery is the well‑known question raised in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s legendary film epic, Berlin Alexanderplatz, which examines the political, social and economic parallels between the Weimar Republic and our contemporary daily life. The reason this parallel is increasingly appearing worldwide today is that the Weimar Republic ( 1918-1933 ) is, as one of the most contradictory periods in German history, also considered a crisis model for modern democracies. On the surface everything seems fine, but behind the soaring artistic creativity, the vibrant social and cultural life and the glittering façade, there actually lurks lies, pretense, decadence, hysteria and hopelessness.

Nagy Gábor, politician, social critic and often ironic painter, uses collages made from image elements he has adopted to his own taste and extracts of text cut from their interrelations for his works. The black background intensifies the vivid colours, his uniquely pastel surfaces and, at times, the over‑laden compositions give the paintings a real physical power. At the same time, interpreting the textual information requires heightened intellectual effort due to its fragmentary nature, which is assisted by the image titles. The cliché‑like settings are brought to life through an associative link with repeating lines of text, the location of which the artist leaves to the viewer's imagination.

Why am I not running away from here? acrylic, canvas, 100 x 140 2008

The exhibition can be viewed until November 29 from Tuesday to Friday 10 to 18, and on Saturday between 10 and 13.

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