Derkovits - The artist and his times [antikvár]

DERKOVITS.THE ARTIST AND HISTIMES There are only a handful of Hungarian artists, whose ouvre could literally be called groundbreaking or epoch-making. Furthermore, there are not many artists whose retrospective exhibition could be presented under the title "the artist and his times" without sounding too grandiloquent. Gyula Derkovits is undoubtedly one of them. He was the type of artist who, during the forty years of his tragically short life, was not only able to develop an acute awareness of the universal quandaries of his own age, the 1920s and 1930s, but also had the genius to come up with the most modern and most original artistic means to express them. The relationship between the individual and the powers that be, together with the tasks and duties of artists, were among the most burning human and artistic problems during the early-twentieth-century emergence of dictatorial mass society. From a strictly art historical viewpoint, the great question of Derkovits's art concerned the possibility of finding a way to move beyond, to surpass or perhaps to circumvent, the Utopian abstractionism of leftwing avant-garde, in order to create serious, modern, committed and powerful art. As it is almost invariably the case with the most trying questions, the answer is simple: one needs to return to the ancient and most fundamental problem of art, the depiction of man. Derkovits's painting revolved around people. It focused on men and women living in, and determined by, human society. It was not about the ideal man, not about the puppet who replaced man, nor about the stylized human figure that assumed an abstract order dreamt up by the artist, but about man plain and simple: whether it was a worker or an artist, a middle-class person or a proletarian, it was always somebody who preserved his or her individuality, with the capacity to embody the universal problems of the age in his or her individual fate and unique circumstances. Derkovits was not interested in the great themes. He knew precisely that the real problem of modern life concerned the fate of simple people. It concerned the moment when they felt their whole world had fallen apart. When everything broke to pieces. When all of a sudden one found an eviction order in the mailbox. When there was blood on everything, even on a loaf of bread. When the warm colours radiated chilling coldness, while the frosty silvery-whites were glowing with warmth. And perhaps this is the reason why this art is so momentous, because it can look at the issues of violence, authority and vulnerability squarely and unflinchingly, and still avoid making any direct political messages. Derkovits's painting never became a tool of political agitation, yet it had the power to shake up people. However, Derkovits's painting also has a lyrical, philosophical, and even satirical vein. And here, too, we find the same effortless ease as well as a "native speaker's" natural knack for the possibilities, devices and forms of artistic expression, which have all been put into the service of the clarity of expression and understanding. Derkovits draws with a sure hand. His artistic devices are straightforward and unequivocal His themes are easily interpreted. The depth of meaning of his compositions is provided by a remarkably deep knowledge of the world he portrays. Whether we look at the dial face of a clock, the scaly skin of fish, the wheel of a railway carriage, a slice of bread or an empty sheet of paper lying on the table, what we see is a reflection of ourselves and the world we live in. During the eight decades that have passed since Derkovits's death, there have been many attempts to appropriate his art. Still, all the attempts to turn him into a proletarian artist or a communist artist have failed. The simple reason for this is that the specific nature of his art did not stem from ideologies, political movements or theoretical constructions: it sprang from a desire to understand the world and the people living in it, and also from the authenticity of the masterly chosen devices of artistic expression. This is the real Gyula Derkovits that our exhibition aspires to present - the great artist who borrowed from the thousand-year-old traditions of modern European art, who sensitively reacted to the challenges of his times, who stood out among his contemporaries with his unique perspective, who came to be one of the greatest figures of twentieth-century Hungarian art. However, it is not only the artist that we would like to present, but also the times he lived in. Through photographs, pictures and graphics from the fateful decades of the twentieth century. Through artworks, in which we can recognize ourselves. Museum of Fine Arts - László Baán General Director Hungarian National Gallery