In the mid-1960s, István Nádler was among the first Hungarian representatives of the neo-avant-garde artistic movement. The early seventies saw him work in a geometric hard edge style, and in the next decade he developed a completely new creative strategy.
This more relaxed, heterogeneous formal idiom relied on musical influences. In the 1990s, he became interested in Oriental philosophies, and painted his pictures while listening to Tibetan liturgical music and traditional Japanese drumming. In 2001, Nádler had a major retrospective exhibition in Műcsarnok, whose catalogue offered a historical overview of his art. He has remained consistent in his artistic search ever since.
The present exhibition shows the important artistic development that has taken place over the last seven years. The display begins with a piece from 2001, and one from 1970 that emphasizes the vertical dimension and references a colorful, energetic period in Nádler’s art, not unlike the present one. After 2001, his black surfaces became devoid of color, and he restricted himself to the lyrical, sometimes playful, gestures of his broad brush. He took up color again in 2005, beginning with color fields that provided the foundations of his paintings. Then the gestures themselves became colorful, and different hues of a single color began to appear. The second part of the exhibition presents completely new pictures, created specifically for the exhibition space.
Lóránd Hegyi wrote of the artist,
Clear tendencies that produce works in entirely homogeneous form of expression for quite some time can be found in Hungarian art relatively rarely. There are, however, some truly outstanding artists whose works chart definite periods and tendencies in art history. Undoubtedly, István Nádler, who has had a central role in art post-1945 art in Hungary, is such a remarkable personality. What is admirable is the consistency with which he elaborated and incessantly refined a coherent plastic concept for more than two decades, and the versatility of his use of form, and his courage to effect radical changes while adhering to basic ideas.
Dates: April 11th – June 2008
Place: Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art
(Palace of Arts)
1095 Budapest, Komor Marcell u. 1.
