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16.05. - 17.06.2019. TAMÁS SOÓS "Melancholy"
16.05. - 17.06.2019
Galerija "Māksla XO"
Elizabetes iela 14, Rīga, LV 1010
TAMÁS SOÓS
Melancholy
In collaboration with one of the greatest masters of metaphysical Hungarian painting – Tamás Soós – for the first time in Riga, „Maksla XO” gallery presents Tamás Soós’ solo show “Melancholy”. The exhibition will feature the latest works by the artist – paintings, papier-mâché sculptures and works on newspaper – created especially for the exhibition in Riga. During the opening week, the artist Tamás Soós will be in Riga himself, and participate at the opening of the exhibition as well.
In Tamás Soós’ works, the theme of melancholy emerges again and again as a multilingual cantus firmus. Since the 1990s, which is considered as the beginning of the painter’s greatest period, his works are marked by the semantic range and formal properties of melancholy, human figures became palpable in his vertical, amorphous shapes – be that in the form of painted symbols or black papier-mâché sculptures. It was at this point, that a systematizing, leitmotif became tangible in Tamás Soós’s work based on existential cogitations or, rather, engaged in a constant dialogue with its own thoughts concerning the human condition.
“I continue my work knowing that what I do is ephemeral: beauty and form are fragile. In the drift of time, not even Melancholy has the power to uphold the fleeting construction I envision as order, a construction that is intrinsically submitted to the state of change. My order of forms are elements of a great interplay of forms; they may be moved and replaced, and they have to be conceived time and again. Neither for the sake of truth, nor for the sake of beauty, but for the freedom of artistic spontaneity.
I have found Melancholy as the basic energy residing in the correlation of objective and mental energies. This is the fracture of existence’s form, which appears as creative energy in the individual. It generates the idea of freedom. Art is in fact energy flowing on from the direction of spiritual energies towards form. Melancholy is able to formalise the energies of existence in art. Indeed, art is an energetic notion: it is the contemplation of Melancholy as energy.
This is the system of Melancholy, which attracts all of my previous works, linking them up into a complex system of correlations. I conceive the emerged system as a work of art, demonstrating that art is not about objects, but about knowledge; it is about the mechanisms of the intellect. The system is a work of art conveying sensations of the possibility, or rather, of the impossibility of complexity.
Melancholy is my monologue.
Art is contemplation itself. Contemplation is Melancholy itself. Melancholy is art itself”- Tamás Soós.
Tamás Soós (1955) was born in Budapest, Hungary. Graduated from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (1985). Since 1985, participates in exhibitions, taken part in more than 100 group shows and organized 37 solo shows. Tamás Soós’ artworks are in many public art collections: Hungarian National Gallery (Budapest, Hungary), Ludwig Museum (Budapest, Hungary), Budapest History Museum (Budapest, Hungary), Kiscell Museum (Budapest, Hungary), King St. Stephen Museum (Székesfehérvár, Hungary), Janus Pannonius Museum (Pécs, Hungary), Lentos Art Museum (Linz, Austria), Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum (Graz, Austria), Albertina (Vienna, Austria), Galerie der Stadt Wels (Wels, Austria), Ludwig Forum for International Art (Aachen, Germany), Kupferstich- Kabinet, der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen (Dresden, Germany), Moderna Galerija (Skopje, Macedonia), KIASMA, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki, Finland), Kleist Museum (Frankfurt/Oder, Germany), Crawford Municipal Art Gallery (Cork, Ireland), Embassy of Hungary (Washington, USA) and others.
More:
https://ltv.lsm.lv/lv/raksts/16.05.2019-kulturas-zinas.id158964/
Exhibition supported by: 
Andris Putāns