Szarka Péter Q.U.A.D.
Péter Szarka (1964) presents his latest paintings in his solo exhibition at acb Plus. One of the most striking formal peculiarities of Szarka's brand new painting programme is that he creates them by stitching together canvases of different sizes and thicknesses. The playful title of the exhibition also reflects the fact that the paintings are mostly composed of four elements, but the word quad refers not only to the four-wheeled vehicle that is common in Hungarian colloquialisms, but also to the quadrangular courtyard or prison.
Schedule
Szarka's new paintings are characterised as much by a strong instinctive painterly expressiveness as by a conceptuality that reinforces the variability and modularity of the works, and maximises the role of chance in their creation. From time to time, Szarka's painterly thinking also appears in his oeuvre in a medial way, his new paintings being linked in many ways to his series painted in 2012/2013, in which he has also used egg tempera. However, the artist's new paintings are in some respects more expressive, more abstract, less referential and freer, as Szarka is constantly experimenting with new techniques and materials.
Péter Szarka's art is based on the integration of pairs of opposites, his surfaces can accommodate the most timeless and timeless egg tempera, which has been used for centuries on panel paintings, while at the same time silicone and spray paint are the most prominent imprints of our time. Yet perhaps the most enduring role in Szarka's painting is that of the axonometric representation of polygons.
Péter Szarka became known as a founding member of the Újlak group during the regime change, his last institutional solo exhibition was at Trafó Gallery in 2017, and before that at Liget Gallery in 2015, before which he exhibited at Műcsarnok, Ludwig Museum, MODEM in Debrecen, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Dunaújváros, and the Szombathely Gallery. Szarka also participated in the 2004 São Paulo Biennale and in a group exhibition at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt. With the Újlak Group, he has exhibited at Art in General in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.
acb Gallery
Founded in Budapest in 2003, acb Gallery has consistently grown in the past two decades establishing itself as one of the leading actors in the Hungarian and Eastern European art market. Initially, the gallery’s focus was on Hungarian and international emerging and mid-generation neo-conceptual artists, who became active after the political changes in the former Eastern Bloc in 1990. Since then, the gallery has expanded its focus, and now represents numerous Hungarian neo-avant-garde artists who have left their mark on art history since the 1960s and 1970s, as well as members of the youngest generations beside the already established ones. Since the autumn of 2022, acb runs three exhibition spaces: the main gallery space, acb Attachment, which serves as a project space, and acb Plus, dedicated to large-scale solo and group presentations. acb’s research and publishing department, acb ResearchLab was founded in 2015. This platform within the gallery aims to fill the gaps in the reception and publication of Hungarian neo-avant-garde and post-avant-garde oeuvres by studying bodies of works and art phenomena previously treated as peripheral. The gallery holds significant importance within the global art market, actively promoting its artists nationally as well as internationally and engaging in art fairs, such as the Art Basel in Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach, the Frieze Masters London or the ARCO Madrid.