2012. december 10., hétfő

GENDER

On December 6th 100 selected posters of the „posterfortomorrow” competition were exhibited in Paris, at Les Arts Décoratifs. The theme: "Gender Equality Now!" The same exhibition was opened today - on International Human Rights day - in about 40 countries, among them in Sopron at the gallery of The Institute of Applied Arts (University of West Hungary). The exhibition was opened by two members of the pre selection jury: Anna Varga and István Orosz.  

2012. december 3., hétfő

TWO EXHIBITIONS IN GYŐR

Poster exhibition of István Orosz in Múzeumház (address: Győr, Bécsi kapu tér 4.)
Common exhibition of István Orosz and Dóra Keresztes at Municipal Museum of Art, Esterházy-palace (address: Győr, Király u. 17.) The museums are five minutes from each other.
Duration: 2012. XII. 1 – 2013. I. 20.

2012. november 19., hétfő

SYMPOSIUM AND SHOW IN ISTANBUL

22nd of November: “The Future of Graphic Design” International symposium organized by Doğuş University, Faculty of Arts and Design.
The first session will start at 10:00 with the participation of Sergio Olivotti, Tevfik Fikret Uçar and Esen Karol. Second session will start at 13.30, the participants are Laze Tripkov, Ayşegül İzer and Haluk Erkmen. Third session will start at 15:45 with Istvan Orosz, Engin Kafadar, Görbüz Dogan Eksioglu and Nazan Erkmen.
The exhibition of Istvan Orosz will be opened at 17.00 in H Block entrance, and the exhibition of Sergio Olivotti will be opened at 18:00 in K BLock entrance. The exhibitions are opened till 22nd of December.
Address: Doğuş University, Gözaçan Kültür ve Sanat Merkezi, Acıbadem, Kadıköy, 34722 İstanbul

http://prizma.dogus.edu.tr/?p=5510

2012. november 1., csütörtök

2012. október 2., kedd

COME TO MOSCOW

OCTOBER 9, 2012, Tuesday
18:00 Opening Ceremony of „Golden Bee” Moscow Global Biennale of Graphic Design, and opening of The International Jury Members Show (David Carson, Ken Cato, Alain Le Quernec, Istvan Orosz, Paula Troxler, Boris Trofimov) in the Central House of Artists (Moscow, Krymskiy val, 10. Metro Stations Oktyabraskaya, Park Kylturi)

OCTOBER 10, 2012, Wednesday
19:00 The exhibition of István Orosz will take place in the Hungarian Information and Cultural Centre. (Moscow, Povarskaya 21. Metro Station Arbatskaya) After the opening ceremony Maral Yakshieva will play piano improvisations on the exhibited pictures.

OCTOBER 12, 2012, Friday
The presentations by the International Jury Members of "Golden Bee" will take place in the Central House of Artists. 11:00–12:00 Boris Trofimov/Russia; 12:00–13:00 István Orosz/Hungary; 13:00–14:00 Paula Troxler/Switzerland; 15:00–16:00 Ken Cato/Australia; 16:00–17:00 Alain Le Quernec/France; 17:00–18:00 David Carson/USA

OCTOBER 12, 2012, Friday
14:00 -16:00: Book presentation in the Moscow State Children Library: Tales by János Pilinszky, translated by Jury Gusev, illustrated by István Orosz. Hungarian Book Illustrations - opening of the exibition by Dóra Keresztes and István Orosz.

OCTOBER 12, 2012, Friday
19:00- 20:00: Lecture by István Orosz and animations by Dóra Keresztes in the British High School of Art and Design (Moscow,10 Nizhnyaya Syromyatnicheskaya St., building 3.)

2012. szeptember 19., szerda

MARGINALIA ...


Miklós Szentkuthy: Marginalia on Casanova
New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2012
Translated by Tim Wilkinson
Cover design by István Orosz
More details of the book are here.
You can read some excerpts here.

2012. szeptember 4., kedd

THREE EXHIBITIONS IN SEPTEMBER


1. Title: Exhibition of István Orosz; theme: wood constructions; location: Sopron, Festőterem, Petőfi tér 8.; dates: 1st – 23rd September.

2. Title: „Vivid Mind” – Exhibition of István Orosz and Lajos Szilassi; theme: geometry; location: Szeged, EDF Gallery, Klauzál tér; dates: 3rd – 25th September.
3. Title: Exhibition of István Orosz; theme: posters; location: Bratislava, Slovak Design Center, Satelit Gallery, Dobrovičova ul. 3. dates: 6 – 30th September.

2012. augusztus 22., szerda

SUMMER OF POSTERS

The catalogue of the International Poster Triennial in Toyama just arrived. Two of my works are selected. It is the 10th triennial in the The Museum of Modern Art of Toyama, and I participated in all of them. Also three of my works are hanging on the walls of the Willanow Poster Museum in Warszawa, where the International Poster Biennial takes place. Both exhibitions are still opened, so if you hang in the neighbourhood…
By the way, three other important poster events will be in this year, triennial in Trnava (Nagyszombat in Hungarian), biennial in Moscow (Golden Bee) and the 2012 edition of “Poster for tomorrow” online competition.  I was asked to be member of the jury panel in all these three places.

2012. július 25., szerda

THE ART OF ILLUSION

I just received the recently published book: The Art of Illusion (An Imagine Book published by Charlesbridge). Among others, the works of M. C. Escher, Sandro del Prete, Akiyoshi Kitaoka, Rafal Olbinski, Dick Thermes and Rob Gonsalves are in the collection. Ten of my works are included too. The great puzzle designer and ambigram artist Scott Kim wrote the foreword. Here are two of his explanations:
This sculpture by István Orosz changes appearance depending on where you stand. From one point of view, the black and white lines drawn on the stairs appear to be a man walking down the stairs. From another point of view, the colored areas align to form the legs of a man walking up the stairs.
Here is a lovely drawing of a classic staircase illusion by the versatile István Orosz in which the diagonal lines are alternately interpreted as edges or creases. Note that the stairs are not shaded; all of the dimensional information comes from the shadows and the way people and objects sit on the stairs.

2012. július 4., szerda

AQUI Y AHORA

For those of you that will be tomorrow in Guadalajara, come and see the „Aqui y Ahora” (Here and Now) poster show in ITESO University. Nine members of the workshop started to work three weeks ago and tomorrow morning we will hang about 20 works in the open-air gallery of the Architecture faculty. Opening ceremony will start at noon. 
 
The title of the posters that we made at the workshop was "Here and now". They often refer to posters by these two words: hic at nunc, here and now, aquí y ahora, itt és most. This means that posters can only fulfill their function at a certain place in a certain time and get outdated very soon. They are not valid at another time or place. Those who are familiar with poster history know that this is not always the case. Posters may become universal independently from time and location - at least good ones. Then it is no more the actual event that is important but the person behind the poster, who makes these works authentic. These pictures leave their original functions behind and the commissioned pieces become autonomous works of art. They get space and other further dimensions, they sublimate. At the workshop the nine participants have designed such posters that reflect on poster design itself and try to interpret the idea of time and space with visual means. 
Let me write the name of the students and colleagues: Enriqe, Diana, Sergio, Hugo, Irma, Diego, Liliana, Ignacio, Fernanda.

2012. június 25., hétfő

"MERICA" AGAIN

Let me draw the attention to an extraordinary exhibition in New York City. This summer the Consulate General of Croatia presents an exhibition "Merika" about the Central European wave of immigrants between 1880 and 1914 at the Museum of Ellis Island. At this exhibition my 1984-film "Ah, Amerika!" also will have a chance to be screened next week (3PM, 28 June), organized by the kind and enthusiastic staff of the Hungarian Culture Centre in NYC.
Although I cannot be there in person at the screening (right now I am leading a graphic design workshop in Mexico), I kindly invite you to this special film screening and exhibition.
If you can not bee there, you can watch the film here.

2012. június 18., hétfő

AH, AMERICA! IN NYC

The Balassi Institute - Hungarian Cultural Center presents the film screening Promised Lands: The Immigrant Experience and the Artist's Gaze
Date And Venue: 7:30pm, 19 June, 2012 Anthology Film Archives 32 Second Avenue (At 2nd St.) New York City
The Program: Ah, Amerika! by István Orosz  and Hunky Blues by Péter Forgács
The screening is part of the days of Central Europe in New York event series.

Dear Friends, the film you are about to see is almost thirty years old. I originally wrote a script at the beginning of the 1980s based on a poem by Hungarian poet Mihaly Babits titled Moving Picture. The poem included the lines “Ah, America, all life lodges there across the sea, Ah, to America, why I cannot travel thither with thee”. After a series of eventually discarded versions and initially promising starts, this plan grew into something we called an “animated documentary myth”. The materials were collected and woven into a movie with my friend Ferenc Daniel. Whenever actual archival materials ran out, whether of the written, hand-drawn, photographed or celluloid kind, animation stepped in, representing at times fiction about and at times reconstructions of the subject matter. The film presented an interpretation about the early 20th century migration of our compatriots, but as it was being made and shown, both creators and audiences reminisced about the newer waves of migration since the 1950s. It may sound unusal today, but while we were working on the film, we never thought of travelling to the United States. That we should meet actual immigrants, see the actual locations. Given the circumstances, such plans would have been out of the question. It is a strange twist of events that while you are listening to these sentences of mine, I am on a plane over the Americas, perhaps right over New York City, headed to Mexico. I would like to extend to you a warm welcome from up there and wish you a pleasant experience tonight.

2012. május 27., vasárnap

THE AMBASSADOR AND THE PHARAOH

An excerpt from the book was translated and published in the Hungarian Review (Volume III., No.3.). Since the book did not only consist of prose text, but also verses, the translation by Péter Balikó Lengyel was a great challenge. Here is the first poem translated to English - and the original one in Hungarian.

Whether into hell or heaven,
as ambassador
now enter —
like a hasty harbinger,
whose only mission is to bow,
forgetting all the massacre.
And, as he, just act in stead
of him who sent you as your master,
then retrace your steps — the faster
the better.
Be thou of the world or faith,
never scrutinize thy fate,
or the message it may harbor.
One day, as you muse before
a painting so peculiar
that it makes you merrier,
your gaze will fix a sight unseen —
an object that has never been,
yet is there inevitably
as your death or destiny:
a vanitas, or vanity.

*
Pokolra juss, vagy juss mennybe,
akár csak egy követ menj be:
szóvivő,
mint akinek nincs is dolga
más, mint szépen meghajolva,
s ahogy ő,
úgy járni el ura helyett,
s már feledni is a helyet
íziben.
Légy világfi, vagy légy tudós,
ne firtasd, hogy mit rejt a sors,
s mit üzen.
S egyszer majd, merengve éppen,
szemed egy különös képen
ráhibáz
valami sohase látott
furcsa tárgyra, ami bár ott
van, de még sincs: mint egy fátum
úgy jelen meg. Vanitatum
vanitas.




2012. április 21., szombat

EXHIBITION IN THE ERLIN / BUDAPEST

The Erlin Gallery cordially invites you to the exhibition of István Orosz. Opening speech is by Gábor Szerényi graphic artist on Wednesday 25 April 2012 at 6 p.m. Music performance by Béla Ágoston. The exhibition will be on view till 14 May 2012, Monday-Friday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.Erlin Gallery, 1092 Budapest, Ráday u. 49.


2012. március 9., péntek

ANIMISMUS

Exhibition Animism Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin - (15.03.-06.05)  The exhibition’s starting point is the artistic-aesthetic process of animation, best known from cartoons and animation films, and examines its relationship with the categorial definitions and limits of the modern world-view.
Participating artists include Adam Avikainen, Marcel Broodthaers, Didier Demorcy, Walt Disney, Jimmie Durham, León Ferrari, J.J. Grandville, Victor Grippo, Candida Höfer, Tom Holert, Ken Jacobs, Yayoi Kusama, Lars Laumann, Len Lye, Daria Martin, Angela Melitopoulos und Maurizio Lazzarato, Vincent Monnikendam, Istvan Orosz, Roee Rosen, Dierk Schmidt, Erik Steinbrecher, Paulo Tavares, Rosemarie Trockel, Martin Zillinger e.a.

An other animation related event in Germany: the 19th Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film starts at 8th of May. Hungary is the guest of the festival, among others you can see Mind the Steps! (1989) and Chess! (2011).

A Brief Overview of Golden Age Hungarian Animation

Although you can find such well-known personalities as John Halas or George Pal at the beginning of Hungarian animation history between the two world wars, permanent animated film production was reinstituted by a few animators who stayed in Hungary during the postwar period. Most importantly it was Gyula Macskássy, a former colleague of John Halas, who assisted the foundation of the stateowned Pannónia Filmstudio in 1951, which, being one of the leading animation studios of the world until the change of regime in 1989, became the very base of Hungarian animation. Following the production of stereotypical children films and folktales during the highly centralized 50s, two shorts, Pencil and India Rubber and Duel by Macskássy and the cartoonist György Várnai, brought a break-through for Hungarian animation on an international scale in early 60s. From then onward, along with popular cartoon series for children purchased by the Hungarian National Television, special attention was given to short animations made primarily for a grown-up audience. These shorts, compared to the rigid political control of live action films, were centrally less censored as a matter of show of political liberty to the international arena at filmfestivals abroad. Also, because of the relative autonomy gained by the economic reforms in 1968, the production of animated family features were launched starting with Johnny Corncob in 1973, and followed by other adaptations of Hungarian literary classics and mythology, such as “Matt the Gooseboy” (1979) by Attila Dargay, “Son of the White Mare” (1981) by Marcell Jankovics, “Heroic Times” (1983) by József Gémes, and by such popular animated features as “Cat City” (1986), an animal parody of Hollywood spy films by Béla Ternovszky. This rich period between the 60s the 80s is usually referred to as the golden age of Hungarian animation. The new wave of short animations emerging in the 60s could effectively grasp the multilayered concerns of human existence. Largely influenced by twist-oriented caricatures. These absurd, satirical depictions of everyday situations can be hallmarked with shorts such as “Concertissimo” by József Gémes, “Moto perpetuo” by Béla Vajda or “Scenes with Beans” by Ottó Foky. Some directors choose to depict more universal themes of human existence and its purpose without having a direct (or rather indirect) reference to the current social-political situation. “Sisyphus”, an Oscarnominated short film by Marcell Jankovics, who is one of the leading animation directors until today, gives a truly original twist to the ancient myth of human endeavour. In “The Fly”, the Oscarwinning short movie by Ferenc Rofusz, the viewer has to identify with the distorted perspective of a small bug who is trapped in a house for good. The social-political dissonances and, as a result, the lack of perspective as a common generational experience of the age was reflected in allegoric ways by several animations from the 70s onward (“Hey, You!”by Péter Szoboszlay, “Mind the Steps!” by István Orosz). Truly the most individual authors of this period, starting their careers in the 60s, were György Kovásznai and Sándor Reisenbüchler. Kovásznai’s oeuvre was mainly based on expressive stop motion painted animations, and grasps the mood of his generation in a very unique way. Reisenbüchler, a dedicated hippie throughout his lifetime, made cutout collage short films, each being a harsh criticism of civilization and drawing attention to the universal social, ecological problems of humanity (“Farewell, Little Island!”, 1987). The following film overview of the Hungarian animation surely provides you with a lively and impressive depiction of the socialist era over the Iron Curtain while the relevance and validity of the very best of Hungarian animation short film history have not become outdated during the past decades.
(From the official site of the festival written by Anna Ida Orosz, animation film historian)





2012. február 28., kedd

VISION IN MOTION


“It’s not enough to have talent, you also have to be Hungarian”— Robert Capa
Exhibition in Glen Eira City Council Gallery. Opens 10am Thursday 8 March and continues until 5pm Sunday 25 March. Opening Wednesday 7 March 6pm.
Exhibition to be launched by Professor Gabor Kovacs AM.
Hungary is renowned for having produced many internationally recognised artists in numerous fields including photography, design, painting and sculpture. Vision in Motion, featuring the works of Hungarian artists Istvan Horkay and Istvan Orosz, as well as Australian artists of Hungarian descent, Michael Meszaros and Andrew Mezei, reinforces this notion and explores the identity and inspiration of these artists as well as examining the influence of heritage within an artist’s realm.
(Click here to see the video.)

2012. február 24., péntek

THE TRAGEDY IN MOSCOW

The most interesting animated films from the Visegrád countries are screened this week in Moscow in cinema 35MM. The programme called „Animation – In the Heart of Europe“. The Tragedy of Man by Marcell Jankovics, is one of the highlights of the festival. I was invited – as one of the graphic designers of the film – to participate in the event. The Tragedy of Man is probably the longest made film of Hungarian film history. The script was written in 1983 and production started in 1988. I was working in the early 90s in the Tragedy. The film was finished in the end of the last year. The Tragedy of Man by the greatest Hungarian dramatist, Imre Madách was translated into 90 languages. The first Russian translations were made in the end of the 19th century.  Also Maxim Gorky ordered a translation for a new edition of the drama. There is an other interesting Russian connection: the first illustrator of the Tragedy was Mihály Zichy; he was the court painter of Emperor Alexander III at that time. It means that probaly the tsar was the first Russian, who was informed about the Tragedy.

2012. január 14., szombat

POEM AND PICTURES























I'll somewhere note your salute
but it won't be me
who will come then, it’s only my
similarity….
….. as you also resemble - mon
semblable, mon frère -
the one who has just read this short
poem you see herein.


István Orosz quotes Baudelaire in the verse he has selected as his motto: mon semblable, — mon frère: my likeness, my melancholy brother – the words borrowed from the prologue to his Les Fleurs du mal address the reader encountering them. The formula is complicated to some degree by the fact that both the writer and the reader only remind of themselves, and of each other, in the sense of the exact likenesses of borrowed words, if you like, reflections. In the works of Orosz – and now I am thinking of his artistic works as well – the role of the mirror is not surprising in the least, which he intends for the viewer and for himself. He has formulated more than once that he sees the individual standing on both sides of the artwork – the artist and the viewer – in identical attire, envisioning both of them as carrying the same weight on the court opposite to the artwork envisioned on balancing scales. He readily quotes the caption above the mirror of the Arnolfinis: Johannes de Eyck fuit hic, whose text, read together with the object, he translates thus: Jan van Eyck was the mirror here; and he readily tries his hand at the revival of such long forgotten media as, for instance, mirror anamorphoses, which attain their effects with doubling. To take a place at the table with his often paraphrased mentors, Niceron, Arcimboldo, Magritte and Escher, with a postmodern gesture, Orosz doubles even himself: from time to time, he signs his works as Outis, the pseudonym borrowed from Cyclops. The most artful Greek, Odysseus, also used as a pseudonym the word meaning No-man, and as we know, with that exchange of names, then Polyphemos the Cyclops’ eye came into the world. The gouging out of the eye, or deception to the eye, also accompanied the works of Orosz/Outis, if only metaphorically. Trompe l’oeil – we refer with an elegant art historical expression to those images in which illusion guides the gaze. Orosz often uses such artifice, though he is completely aware of the danger of these deceptive procedures. He put it this way at a symposium a few years back: I hope my intentions are clear, in the ambitions of a Hungarian artist at the end of the 20th century, who does not tell the truth only to be caught in the act. Sincerity and hypocrisy simultaneously – the line of Baudelaire quoted in the prologue commences thus: hypocrite lecteur – hypocritical reader. And hypocritical viewer – we might add, since the world that Orosz presents functions according to autonomous rules – laws whose meaning are perpetually questioned by convention, and undoubtedly must be learned.

(Text: Guy D'Obonner)