Clouds to Polonius - Retrospective exhibition of Istvan Orosz in the Ernst Museum

"...We never have direct contact with the world surrounding us. We all live and work in the world-models created by our own minds." (Marvin Minsky)


Orosz has had art exhibitions since the end of the 1970s. He is actively working in more fields of fine art: he makes prints and drawings (mainly etchings and illustrations), he does graphic design (placards), he paints, he creates three-dimensional objects and installations (mostly mirror- and perspective anamorphoses), and his animations are also well known. The Hungarian artist is also recognised abroad and he had significant exhibitions in several countries: in the exhibition hall of the Aristotelian University (Thessalonica, Greece, 1997), in the Payne Gallery (Bethlehem University, Pennsylvania, 1998), in Silkeborg (Sweden, 2000), in the Kunst Center (2000), in the Slovakian National Gallery (Bratislava, 2002). István Orosz is the only Hungarian artist whose work is included in the rearranged collection of Tate Modern in London. Posters designed for fine art exhibitions, films, theatre plays are an important field of his activity. "Before me, the slyest Homeric hero had the name 'Outis' ('nobody' in Greek) when he fought against the Cyclops, which fight, as it is well-known, cost him his eye-sight. I consider the placard too a sort of insult against the eye." (István Orosz). With his anamorphoses he attempts to affect our senses. In his sign-system the viewers are confronted with a visual representation of the absolute: endless interconnected spaces, absurd structures, immense labyrinths, depicted with an attempt to give meaning to absence. The viewer is embarrassed by the transformation of forms. His direct sources are the pictures of Arcimboldo, Escher, Magritte. The false-perspectives and sight illusions, which seem accurately calculated, often lead the viewer to the relativity of human existence and the borders of the rational perception of reality. The theme is presented in diverse levels of reality. The viewer’s role has the same importance in the animation of István Orosz's works as the artist, himself. The first step of opinion-formation is in the eye itself. Orosz challenges our mind's information transmission in this early stage of perception, and thus the reliability of our opinion formed.
The exhibition organised in the Ernst Museum is suitable, due to the spatial conditions, for a partly separated but still correlating presentation of the various fields of Orosz's oeuvre.

On the occasion of this exhibition a well-illustrated catalogue is issued with writings of mostly István Orosz.

He loves using mirrors. His structure built of mirrors creates an original, surprising spatial experience. Mirroring, reflection, distortion, dimension-changes, numberless shimmering fragments of reality in broken mirrors. Whole. Part. And the IMPRINT in the end!

Since every mirror stores the imprints of the faces that have ever bathed in its lights.

Alice in Wonderland! Remember!

The exhibition provides You with this experience in a separate room.