József Csató
My Memory Foam Keeps Forgetting
The Erika Deák Gallery is delighted to announce a long-awaited solo exhibition by József Csató.
The title of the exhibition is revealing, referring not only to the subject of the new paintings, but also to Csató's artistic attitude. The memory mattress is a bit like the life of an artist. At night it becomes intertwined and single with the person lying on it, but in the morning it unties and becomes vacant. It must be reminded of the sleeper every night, just as the artist in his studio, where he must reinterpret his art and himself every day, in every single artwork.
The paintings in Csató's latest exhibition take us to his private spaces, and transforms the gallery into an imaginary house. As we have come to expect from Csató, he consciously plays on the ambivalence of forms and spaces in his compositions. The edges between the living room, the bedroom or the garden sometimes disappear and sometimes just blur, and in these collage-like interiors some fairytaily forms join and move away from each.
Csató's paintings are personal recollections oscillating on the border of figurative and abstract. They require the viewer to constantly redefine his gaze and his own attitude of reception. The very thrill of the artist’s paintings is that they make us believe that what we see is familiar, however the longer we look at these works, the more uncertain we become about our own comprehension. In one moment Csató's emblematic biomorphic, amoeba-like forms can be interpreted as abstrac tblobs in juxtaposition, then suddenly we might see them as real creatures marching across his canvas as if the players of his absorbing narrative. The interpretation depends on how we manage to reside in our own memory foams.
József Csató (1980, Mezőkövesd) graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2006, majoring in painting. He has been awarded the Gyula Derkovits Scholarship for three consecutive years, and in 2013 he received the prestigious Esterházy Prize. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions abroad and in Hungary, exhibiting several times in Stuttgart, Berlin, Vienna, Antwerp and Dallas. His works are included in the most important private and public collections in Hungary and abroad.
For more information please contact the gallery.
Opening: May 16, 2023 Tuesday 18:00 pm
On view: May 17 – July 28. 2023
Opening speech: Marcell Rév, cinematography