Attila Szűcs
Rehearsal
Artist
Attila Szűcs
(1967, Miskolc), Hungarian
Original Title
Rehearsal
Date2021
Mediumoil on plywood
Dimensions140 × 100 cm
Classificationspaintings
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha
DescriptionHungarian painter Attila Szücs creates monumental figurative canvases depicting surreal scenes with uncertain meanings. These complex scenes are most often inspired by photography, online images, movie shots, and postcards, which he translates into drawings and consequently onto the canvas. The people portrayed sometimes include famous historical figures whose legacies Szücs seeks to reinterpret through hits paintings. His work often thematizes dark moments of Hungarian national history linked to the totalitarian periods of Nazism and communism. Due to the intentional indecipherability of their content, the paintings stir feelings of uncertainty and ambivalence in their viewers. The impression of unidentifiable, apocalyptic mystery is compounded by Szücs’s setting of the scenes in desolate spaces and his emphasis on lighting and an almost scenographic portrayal. Interpretation of the painting remains ambiguous, as if always redefined by the gaze of every viewer and their individual and collective experiences.
Rehearsal (2021) portrays a mysterious process which provokes our imagination without providing a firmer definition of the painting’s content. The most salient feature of the canvas is a levitating torso of a boy set against a starry sky, floating above a strange, partially constructed structure. An unidentifiable golden matter flows through the boy’s palms, evoking a rehearsal of a strange process or ritual, the content of which remains hidden to us.
Attila Szücs (*1967, Miskolc) is one of the most prominent contemporary Hungarian painters. He lives and works in Budapest. During his studies at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest, Szücs mastered traditional painterly techniques based on a refined handling of oil paint. During this time, he also had several internships (e.g., at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin) and received scholarships (e.g., the Roman scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Arts; the Derkovits Scholarship). Szücs is a laureate of numerous prizes including the Mihály Munkácsy Award, the Smohay Award, and the Barcsay Award. His work has been displayed in the Czech Republic several times: at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague (Nightfall. New Tendencies in Figurative Painting, 2013), the Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava (Disruptive Imagination, 2017), and the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery in Hluboká nad Vltavou (Man is Man to Man, 2018). Szücs’s paintings are included in the collections of institutions such as the Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, the National Gallery in Budapest, and the Ludwig Museum in Budapest. His biggest solo exhibition to date, titled Specters and Experiments, took place at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest between 2016 and 2017.
Rehearsal (2021) portrays a mysterious process which provokes our imagination without providing a firmer definition of the painting’s content. The most salient feature of the canvas is a levitating torso of a boy set against a starry sky, floating above a strange, partially constructed structure. An unidentifiable golden matter flows through the boy’s palms, evoking a rehearsal of a strange process or ritual, the content of which remains hidden to us.
Attila Szücs (*1967, Miskolc) is one of the most prominent contemporary Hungarian painters. He lives and works in Budapest. During his studies at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest, Szücs mastered traditional painterly techniques based on a refined handling of oil paint. During this time, he also had several internships (e.g., at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin) and received scholarships (e.g., the Roman scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Arts; the Derkovits Scholarship). Szücs is a laureate of numerous prizes including the Mihály Munkácsy Award, the Smohay Award, and the Barcsay Award. His work has been displayed in the Czech Republic several times: at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague (Nightfall. New Tendencies in Figurative Painting, 2013), the Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava (Disruptive Imagination, 2017), and the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery in Hluboká nad Vltavou (Man is Man to Man, 2018). Szücs’s paintings are included in the collections of institutions such as the Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, the National Gallery in Budapest, and the Ludwig Museum in Budapest. His biggest solo exhibition to date, titled Specters and Experiments, took place at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest between 2016 and 2017.
