"Big Picture" - Zsolt Bodoni
“The Big Picture”, an exhibition of paintings by Zsolt Bodoni, can be seen in the Art Factory Studio from May 29 through end of August 2008.
The exhibition represents a one-year experiment during which Bodoni sought to develop a new way to examine and artistically represent the big issues of life, love, spirituality and death.
The title “The Big Picture” refers not only to the monumental scale of the paintings, but also to the subject matters, which Bodoni examines from several intellectual perspectives, but always in the same way on the canvas. The composition of each painting consists of a central figure against a detail-free black background.
Bodoni has picked subjects weighted with symbolic meaning, which he strives to portray in non-traditional ways. The large scale of the canvas allows the artist to super magnify his subject, effectively altering the viewer’s plane of perception.
The single central object, whether it is a flower, face, heart, skull, or cluster of such, is painted with masterful strokes that often infuse the objects with unlikely energy and emotion. The (LOVE) triptych, for instance, features a 2.5-meter tall heart framed by the right and left halves of a brain (the parentheses if you will). In this case Bodoni’s title provides a literal interpretation of the piece, yet taken out of this context the luminescent, fatty heart still conveys emotion and tells a story with which most can identify.
In the four-part series “Angels Are Gone” the first panel features a cluster of human hearts, jumbled together in a jewel-toned mass of ruby red, garnet and rubellite organs. Although the objects clearly represent a human heart, at close viewing they become more abstract and the work emits a pulsating magenta glow.
The “Big Picture” series represents a dramatic departure from Bodoni’s previous work. These pieces are more controlled and less intuitive, with a clearly deliberate intention. Bodoni’s work over the past 10 years reveals a diary of his personal experience and inner emotional life. It is also a commentary on the post Communist society in which he lives. Bodoni has often used objectification to symbolize the demoralizing effect of Communism which stripped away individual identity and sense of worth.
Bodoni continues the themes of objectification and disconnection in “The Big Picture” series as well. While his previous self-portraits often showed him shrouded or corpse-like, in “The Big Picture Series” the results are more direct and startling, such as “The Godfather” where Bodoni appears as the severed head of Holofernes floating in a jar of blue liquid.
The other self portrait in the exhibition appears as the center piece of a 13-piece series called “Playing God”. In this series a huge portrait of Bodoni pictured as the Vitruvian Man is the anchor for 12 airplane windows running along a corridor. From each airplane window a different view can be seen.
Bodoni’s title and the use of the Vitruvian Man provide us with a myriad of interpretations, but if we follow Leonardo’s supposed intention, to depict the Vitruvian man as the cosmografia del minor mondo, then “Playing God” is an apt title. Of course the title could also refer to his audacity at mimicking the great master, thus showing us that the dark soul of Bodoni also has a sense of humour.
Bodoni has ended his experimentation with The Big Picture. This exhibition is the denouement. It can be seen in the Exhibition Hall of the Art Factory Studio on special viewing days soon to be announded.
The Art Factory Studio is located in the 13th district, near the intersection of Váci út and Vizafogó. Enter either through the ABB building at Váci út 152-156 (Forgách u. metro) or if driving, enter at the ABB-Alstom ‘teher porta’ on Vizafogo, just before the stoplight at Váci út.
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