The Image of Colour, the... | Exhibitions

The Image of Colour, the Mystery of Image

MODEM, the Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts

Debrecen | Hungary

Feb 10, 2024 - May 12, 2024

The current exhibition at MODEM, titled The Image of Colour, the Mystery of Image, presents a comprehensive selection of monochrome paintings from the Antal-Lusztig Collection. This collection is recognised as one of the most significant private collections in Hungary, and a major group of works from it have been deposited in the museums of Debrecen. Focusing on the tradition of exhibiting works from the Antal-Lusztig Collection, this selection comprises several hundred national and international works. Dr. P茅ter Antal, the owner, began his acquisition of monochrome paintings in the mid-2000s, and the collection of more than five hundred works constitutes a separate segment of his collection. Over the past decades, a selection of these monochrome works has been featured in several exhibitions in Hungary and abroad. The significance of this material, which has never been exhibited in its entirety, lies, among other things, in the exceptional commitment to collecting. Through this commitment, the spirit and legacy of monochrome painting persist in the national discourse, manifesting not only as individual works and consistent creative endeavours, but also occasionally appearing in public discourse through press publications accompanying exhibitions featuring selected works from the Antal-Lusztig Collection. This contributes to the continuity of communication on the subject and underscores the unquestionable historical (and international) embedding of the chapter of the monochrome in Hungary.

Marcia Hafif, one of the most prominent figures in the monochrome painting movement, published her programmatic essay Beginning Again in 1978. In this essay, Hafif deconstructs the medium of painting, tracing its origins back to historical references. In order to begin painting anew, Hafif urges a reexamination of the claims made by artists such as Rodchenko, Malevich, Strzemi艅ski, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, and others who had proclaimed the death of painting. She highlights a cricital juncture when, in her words, 鈥渢he enterprise of painting was in question, was 鈥渦nder erasure鈥�. A resolution to this moment emerged when 鈥渁rtists still interested in painting began an analysis of painting, turning to the basic question of what painting is鈥�, not in order to define painting, but to be able to revitalise it by initiating a fresh start.

Joseph Marioni, a prominent American monochrome painter, builds on Marcia Hafif鈥檚 theoretical assumptions. Marioni defines monochrome painting as an 鈥渁pproach鈥� best characterised as a 20th century research project that sought to explore the defining principles of painting. As such, this approach enabled painters committed to monochrome to synthesise the painting experience of their predecessors through a fundamental analysis of painting. The painters and oeuvres associated with this research, inspired by the material components of painting but transcending abstraction, laid new foundations for the relationship between painting (image) and spectator. Furthermore, they redefined the conceptual pair of painting (image) and object and, most significantly, liberated the material nature of paint from the centuries-old shackles of representation.