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.
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.
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their function at a certain place in a certain time and get outdated very soon.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
