Matter is only a medium for thoughts

As I have visited Flóra Kőszeghy’s studio several times, I am familiar with her works and I gladly agreed to write a short reflection on the works of a practicing colleague in a short preface to a catalogue, as there is no space for more in a foreword.
In the arts, there is no ranking, neither is it possible to make one, despite the fact that there have been important thinkers, who have seen either music or architecture to be superior to other arts, and to be considered greater among the arts. It is obvious, if only on the basis of common sense, that the art of dance, for example, has its own means and possibilities, something that is available only to it, and that this is obviously true of the other disciplines. It is not even worth discussing this question, and I only raise it in the context of this article, because Flora Kőszeghy, as an active architect, and as an active visual artist, has chosen to work in two genres: she is both an architect and a regularly exhibiting artist. This is not surprising, because our time is pervaded and characterised by a new phenomenon in culture: the interpenetration of previously closed art forms, that were fixed within their own framework, now tend to mix their modes of expression, their tools being used together and in parallel. I could cite the example of the widely known performance art, a new artistic phenomenon, that is part of the visual arts, perhaps best known under the name of Marina Abramovic, which is a specific combination of theatre and visual arts. Of course, there are other examples, I will not discuss them here, but I would like to relate this idea and this phenomenon to a very brief analysis of Flóra Kőszeghy’s work, and since her undeniably interdisciplinary approach is obvious to me, I think it is also the key to understanding her paintings, so I will think about her work in this perspective.
First and foremost, it is remarkable and almost comforting that Kőszeghy chose to use classical oil and canvas technique, the traditional solution of painting introduced since the Renaissance. It is through this use of material and its form that she expresses her visual ideas to us. Of course, the matter is only a medium for the ideas. It is only a tool that helps the artist to express her formulated ideas, to find the basis of articulation, of „visibility”, to convey her wishes and her expressed opinions to the world in this material form. The traditional use of material could, of course, be misleading if it were not accompanied by a much more important aspect of the works, the aspect of content, a fundamentally modern attitude towards traditional material, a sensitive perception of the present, the current historical time. At this point, we arrived at the concept of placing Flóra Kőszeghy’s paintings in a particular context within the framework of contemporary art (this time only in sentences). Obviously, it will be immediately clear to everyone that in these works there is no place or meaning for embellishment, and that creating cheap and „tasteful” home decoration is not part of the artist’s intentions. Her intents are much higher than that. Kőszeghy’s interdisciplinary position, her skills, her dual ‚identity’ as an architect and artist in one, interestingly designated for her, perhaps not consciously, a visual perspective.
Her world is a representation of space, sometimes containing complex shapes, representing two different planes, sometimes meeting, diverging, reuniting, while simultaneously undergoing colour changes, and representing a current, often „alienated” 21st century world view, which is also a reflection of the artist’s creative imagination, and her own world of forms. The collisions of smoothly articulated or harshly grinding forms, sometimes depicting specific technical details of buildings or machines, can provide a deeper interpretation of the paintings, and may even offer a symbolic invocation of our general social conflicts for people who have the „ear and eye to decode the message of art”. Looking at the works, another particularity of this kind of art is that in the early twentieth century, the split in the visual arts, (a gross simplification), into either representational „naturalistic” or, so-called, abstract modes of representation, which in the works we see here, are not separated and this could be understood as a search for a new kind of synthesis of the two positions, sometimes capable of repositioning the differences in worldviews. This is the course that the creator of these paintings is now pursuing, in a way that I feel is both remarkable and appropriate.
To speculate on Kőszeghy’s further path, her further experiments and their realisation, „on the broad highway of art” would be dumbness on my part. But there is no doubt ,that with her strong will, her desire for self-expression, and her real visional awareness, we can expect further works from this committed artist, whose new and more recent initiatives in the form of exhibitions are an encouraging perspective for the future, overcoming the general neurosis of our time and the sense of crisis that has become part of our everyday life, often justified, perhaps sometimes exaggerated. But we hope that the deep instinctive creativity and artistic power inherent in human beings will continue to exist, and that it’s specific manifestations are present here in a visible and tangible way in the thought-provoking works of Flóra Kőszeghy.

Károly Klimó
painter, graphic, notable member of Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts

Budapest, 2023

CV

Flóra Kőszeghy

Education:

2011
The Doctoral School of Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture I Absolutorium
2006
Archietcural degree at BME Budapest
2004
Ecole d’architecture de Paris la Villette I Erasmus

Exhibitions

Selected solo shows

2022
Architectural Being I Fest;tisztít Gallery, Budapest, HU

2021
Analogues I Új Műhely Gallery, Szentendre, HU

2020
Spatial cuts vol.3. ..LAS I Kahan Art Space, Budapest, HU

2019
Spatial cuts vol.2. OD I Kahan Art Space, Budapest, HU
Techno Organic Creatures I Karinthy Szalon, Budapest, HU
Spatial Cuts vol.1. DRI I Massolit Books and Café, Budapest, HU
Non continuum I Valid World Hall, Barcelona, HU

2018
Logical Being I Fuga Gallery, Budapest, HU

2017
Literal Biopsy I P28 Gallery, Budapest, HU

2016
House|is I Watertower Gallery, Debrecen, HU
Typisch I Szatyor Art Space Gallery, Budapest, HU
Vivant I Hungarian Architects Chamber, Budapest, HU

Selected group exhibitons / fairs

2022
Howard Baker Contemporary I Artmarket Budapest, HU
Create2Gether I Jewish Cultural Institute, HU

2021
HPMD I Szolnok Fine Arts Society, Szolnok, HU
Poszt Stadion Stadium I Fuga Gallery, Budapest, HU
Howard Baker Contemporary I Artmarket, Budapest, HU

2020
Secret gardens I Gallery Max, Budapest, HU
Art Market Budapest I Magyar Műhely Gallery, Budapest, HU

2019
O.F.N.I. Valid World Hal, Barcelona, SP
Cover/Age I Kunsthalle, Budapest, HU

2018
Proportion Putto XXL I Cultiris Gallery, Budapest, HU
Primek Primissima I Vajda Lajos Studio, Szentendre, HU

2017
Viewing space I Fuga Gallery, Budapest, HU
Ausgleich I Collegium Hungaricum, Vienna, AT
AQB@Dunapest I Artquater Budapest, HU
Primek Primissima I Csíkszereda, RO
Artlocator Issue 4 I Andrássy 66, Budapest, HU
Ausgleich I Österreichisches Kulturforum, Budapest, HU
Primek Primissima I Yurtanzuhany Gallery, Debrecen, HU