ArtTraveler photo gallery: color palette of symbols from a trip 2

"There´s a Reason Cats are Smarter than Dogs II" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Disparity" Photograph by Stefan van Drake 2011

"Possession" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Up Against the Wall" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Flower Power" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Hungarian Trabant: Found Art on Four Wheels" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Follow the Way of Robbi" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Death to the Status Quo" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"We Are Watching II" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Failed Symbol II" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Escape Route II" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Grave Memorials II" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

ArtTraveler notes:

After living at the Hotel Queen Mary in Budapest (3.5 stars), I heartily recommend it: old on the outside, otherwise totally modern (23 rooms); 

The owner and staff are affable and speak English and German. Tel: 0036-1-413-3510; www.hotelqueenmary.hu; info@hotelqueenmary.hu.

Visit Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. 

See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

"Spanish Life Stilled," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)

You may reach me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 915 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.

 

"Gated Ghosts of Szentendre" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Intergalactica": exploring the inside of Via Lewandowsky´s concept brain

"Intergalactica" by Via Lewandowsky at Art on Lake Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Berliner Via Lewandowsky wants to leave his body to science if his brain could be exhibited posthumously in a man-sized stainless steel cylinder with a glass lintel, his last installation.

He says this provision exists in his last will and testament.

Via Lewandowsky

In Lewandowsky´s “The Artist´s Brain,” the concept artist created a painting in 1998, almost a poster of sorts, showing how he wanted his cerebral display to look, black box and all.

Dr. Alexander Tolnay, one of three curators for Art on Lake in Budapest, asked Lewandowsky to put something together specially for the 25-European Union contemporary sculpture marine exhibition. 

"The Artist´s Brain" by Via Lewandowsky 1998

Lewandowsky, who is rarely caught without a concept to conjure, ultimately opted for “Intergalactica,” a perfectly normal portable privy planted firmly in half a meter of water that cries out sounds from outer space.

All this resonating across the dimpled, algae-green waters of City Park Lake at Heroes’ Square in central Budapest.

Art on Lake opened 22 May and closes 4 September. 

The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest launched the show, which took more than two years to plan.

Born in Dresden in 1963, Lewandowsky wanted his concept for Art on Lake to “build on the contradiction between the idyllic surroundings and natural disasters,” wrote Peter Fitz, co-curator and editor of the show´s catalogue. 

The artist originally wanted to create the illusion of an oil or toxic spill at Art on Lake, but then along came BP´s Gulf of Mexico tragedy followed by Hungary´s own horrific, toxic red sludge catastrophe near Ajka last October.

Lewandowsky shifted plans, ending up with his porta-potty in blue and white, acoustically accentuated by sounds of another world not normally associated with the object.

Lewandowsky´s works span a wide variety of genre: performances, paintings, sculptures, installations.

According to online literature, the artist walks the path of early Dadaism and Surrealism.

"Intergalactica" by Via Lewandowsky at Art on Lake 2011

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

ArtTraveler notes:

After living at the Hotel Queen Mary in Budapest (3.5 stars), I heartily recommend it: old on the outside, otherwise totally modern (23 rooms); 

The owner and staff are affable and speak English and German. Tel: 0036-1-413-3510; www.hotelqueenmary.hu; info@hotelqueenmary.hu.

Visit Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. 

See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

"Spanish Life Stilled," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)

You may reach me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 915 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.

"Full Moon Porta-Potty" at Sziget Festival - Budapest Photograph by Matthew Z. Zomick (2011)

Zeno Kelemen takes us into a fourth dimension with his "Rounded Loop"

"Rounded Loop" by Zeno Kelemen at Art on Lake Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

While Mimmo Roselli´s obsessed with straight lines and space, Zeno Kelemen takes viewers into the fourth dimension with his geometric curves of “Rounded Loop.”

Kelemen and Roselli are among 25 European Union contemporary sculptors exhibiting at Art on Lake in central Budapest, sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest.

It opened 22 May and closes 4 September.

Only age 17 at the time of “political change” in Hungary (1989), Kelemen really never grasped Socialist realism.

“He is inspired by the sophisticated structures of interwoven Mobius strips, wave patterns and twisted curves,” wrote Peter Fitz, co-curator of Art on Lake and editor of the show´s catalogue released earlier this month.

“He builds an open shape inside a truly enclosed structure, generating a new sculptural reality that does not equate with physical reality.”

Peter Fitz Photo by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Fitz and other Hungarian contemporary art experts opine that Kelemen represents the spirit of 1920 constructivism. 

“He takes a wave, locked by its own rules inside an infinitely repeating pattern, and transforms it into something else, creating a pulsating and independent system out of it that never existed before,” wrote Fitz, considered the leading expert on Hungarian contemporary art.

“The sculptures are emphatically open, typified by momentum and airiness, playing with the balance of mass,” added Fitz in Art on Lake´s catalogue.

Kelemen designed “Rounded Loop” especially for Art on Lake. 

It, like one of its similar predecessors, “Doomed Loop,” was supposed to have 250 randomly planted LED lights in the piece for night viewing.

That did not happen, Fitz said in a phone interview today.

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

ArtTraveler notes:

After living at the Hotel Queen Mary in Budapest (3.5 stars), I heartily recommend it: old on the outside, otherwise totally modern (23 rooms); 

The owner and staff are affable and speak English and German. Tel: 0036-1-413-3510; www.hotelqueenmary.hu; info@hotelqueenmary.hu.

Visit Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. 

See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

"Spanish Life Stilled," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)

You may reach me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 915 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.

There´s more to art activist Mimmo Roselli than lines cutting spaces

Mimmo Roselli´s four white lines splicing space at Art on Lake Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

“We need to take a new way to perceive the world: a more slight way, a more transparent way, a less aggressive way, with much more empty spaces, with more silence to listen to a possible dialogue between ethic and aesthetic.”

--Mimmo Roselli

The tower of Vajdahunyad Castle looked mystically moored to City Park Lake by four thick and taught white ropes, sharply distinct lines slicing space into various geometric shapes, depending on where you stand at Art on Lake in Budapest.

Art on Lake, a unique exhibition of 25 contemporary marine sculptures by 25 European Union concept artists, concludes 4 September. It opened 22 May.

The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest launched the show after two years of planning. Curators include Peter Fitz, Dr. Alexander Tolnay and Krisztina Jerger.

Minimalist Roselli said of his work: “My sculptures are spaces into spaces and the people are pushed to use the space as a new space. The space, inside or outside space, is a co-protagonist of the work.”

Roselli, who describes himself as an "artist and painter", installed  his linear motif at the Kiscelli Museum (in Obuda, northern Budapest) in 2008, installing three lines of heavy hemp ropes.

He started from the chancel of the former church, spanning its pace and arcades, before breaking through the walls out into the open air, according to Fitz, also director of the Kiscelli Museum/Budapest Municipal Picture Gallery.

Peter Fitz Photograph by Stefan van Drake

“If we go a little further and enter the conceptual territory of contemporary art, we may also observe the tensions created by these ´rays´ crossing the void as metaphors of the unknown and the unsaid, the unlived and unimagined....,” wrote Pilar Ribal, who curated Roselli´s solo show with Fitz at the Kiscelli.

There´s more to Roselli than lines cleaving space.

His second dimension is monochromatic painting, consistent with his minimalism.

Roselli described his style: 

“My interest has been directed towards large spaces, the ´ground,’ distinguished by lightness and transparency; at the same time by stratification and a great richness of details: these spaces are furrowed by signs that cross the canvas like a walk in a vast landscape.”

Mimmo Roselli´s installation at Kiscelli Muzeum, Budapest 2008

Between projects and shows, Roselli, who lives in Florence (b.1952 Rome), teaches and inspires children and adults to create murals and other projects in poor barrios of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and in Ipitacito del Monte, Bolivia.

Since 2007, Roselli has actively sought funding to launch a school of art in the Chaco region of Bolivia.

For Roselli, these are hands-on art missions, interventions.

You can explore these in detail on the artist´s officialwebsite. Definitely worth reading.

Very uplifting.

Roselli has also exhibited in: New York; Rome; Firenze, Italy; Heidelberg; Lodz, Poland; Nicosia, Cyprus; Vienna; Basel, Switzerland; California and Florida, USA and Frankfurt.

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

ArtTraveler notes:

After living at the Hotel Queen Mary in Budapest (3.5 stars), I heartily recommend it: old on the outside, otherwise totally modern (23 rooms); 

The owner and staff are affable and speak English and German. Tel: 0036-1-413-3510; www.hotelqueenmary.hu; info@hotelqueenmary.hu.

Visit Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. 

See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

"Spanish Life Stilled," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)

You may reach me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 915 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.

Makipaa & Ulfarsson display eco doom at Art on Lake in sinking ‘Atlantis'

"Atlantis" by Tea Makipaa & Halldor Ulfarsson at Art on Lake Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

“The aim of the project is to evoke discussion, and to appeal to viewer´s personal feeling of responsibility on the level of daily life and choices.

“The second aim is to relieve the confusion and frustration of facing ecological issues, by making the choices very simple.”

--Tea Makipaa, about “10 Commandments for the 21^st Century.”

The same could be said about the collaboration between Halldor Ulfarsson and Tea Makipa, in “Atlantis,” a sinking cottage, a metaphor for civilization?

The appearance of “Atlantis,” a 2007 built-for-water protest against overheated consumerism, indulgence and waste, served as a warning.

Curators liked it.

"Atlantis" appears sinking at Art on Lake Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

The pair´s symbol, which has appeared in various colors throughout Europe, inspires eco-sensitive curators like those for Art on Lake in central Budapest, site of 25 European Union artists´ individual contemporary water-based works (22 May -  4 September).

The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest launched the ambitious marine sculpture project,a sort of reprise of one it sponsored in 2000 with more than 20 Hungarian sculptors.

The position of the sinking green cottage or home also suggests, by its angle, a tipping point symbolizing a steady, irreversible path to environmental self-destruction.

Makipaa knows she´s not going to make allot of money and multi-national corporate friends with her works.

One of Art on Lake´s curators—Krisztina Jerger, Dr. Alexander Tolnay and Peter Fitz—in earlier literature about “Atlantis,” wrote:

“Sometimes we, ourselves bring about catastrophe, at others, we are merely victims. And sometimes, like the occupants of Atlantis, we do not even notice the changes taking place but just go on living our lives until water surrounds us completely.”

Art on Lake Catalogue, which came out earlier this month, emphasized the same theme of eco hell, humanity destroying humanity through wasteful hyper-consumerism.

Although Makipaa, age 38, frequently collaborates, as in the case with “Atlantis” and Halldor Ulfarsson, she produces and exhibits prolifically: at least six solo shows and numerous group exhibitions in the USA, UK, Japan, Europe, and Turkey.

Not long after she earned her MFA from The Royal College of Art, London, in 2003, she moved to Germany, where she continues to live and work.

"Down for the Count" at Art on Lake Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

ArtTraveler notes:

After living at the Hotel Queen Mary in Budapest (3.5 stars), I heartily recommend it: old on the outside, otherwise totally modern (23 rooms); 

The owner and staff are affable and speak English and German. Tel: 0036-1-413-3510; www.hotelqueenmary.hu; info@hotelqueenmary.hu.

Visit Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. 

See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

"Spanish Life Stilled," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)

You may reach me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 915 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.

Susana Solano´s submerged metal slab keeps curators guessing

"Untitled," Susana Solano´s mysterious metal work rests below stationery row boat at Art on Lake Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Submerging a 50-meter rectangular metal slab below the surface of City Lake Park in Budapest as her work for Art on Lake (22 May – 4 September) seemed like a good idea, on paper.

That was in 2009 when Catalan contemporary artist SusanaSolano visited Budapest and at their invitation, met with curator Dr. Alexander Tolnay and LaszloBaan, director of the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, which sponsors the unique show of 25 contemporary sculptors planted in 35,000 square meters of water, half a meter deep.

At a time when her “Untitled” was still a work in progress, early Art on Lake literature noted: “Solano, however, is yet to try her strength against the conditions in Budapest.”

That means algae, green, thickening, soupy and slimy waters in late July and August.

“Untitled” intends to create a “feeling of a soft sandy sea bed where it´s good to get out of the boat and come into contact with nature with one´s feet,” according to this literature.

You can rent boats and row over her “Untitled.”

The strong shine envisioned did exist for awhile, co-curator of Art on Lake Peter Fitz told me.

But by mid-June, little of the metal could be easily seen. Algae and nature appeared to prevail.

Solano, age 65, “…is fascinated by contrasts and by contradictory pairings, like stability-instability, openness-closeness and mobility-permanence,” curators wrote in the Art on Lake Catalogue released earlier this month.

Curators (Fitz, Tolnay and Krisztina Jerger) put a happy face on the algae, however, noting in the catalogue that the algae changes colors of the water and thus constantly changing. “The theme of constant change is part of the essence of Solano´s works.”

Solano, who studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona, has exhibited in the Venice Biennale (1988 and 1993) and widely throughout Europe and the United States.

Art on Lake contemporary art exhibition in central Budapest (22 May - 4 September) Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

ArtTraveler notes:

After living at the Hotel Queen Mary in Budapest (3.5 stars), I heartily recommend it: old on the outside, otherwise totally modern (23 rooms); 

The owner and staff are affable and speak English and German. Tel: 0036-1-413-3510; www.hotelqueenmary.hu; info@hotelqueenmary.hu.

Visit Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. 

See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

"Spanish Life Stilled," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)

You may reach me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 915 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.

New Yorker MZ Zomick invokes "Post Socialist Syndrome" in image & verse

"PSS" Photograph by Matthew Z. Zomick (2011)

"Scar Tissue" by Matthew Z. Zomick (2011)

PSS Post Socialist Syndrome

a poem by

Matthew Z. Zomick (2011)

"Still Seeing Red" Photograph by Matthew Z. Zomick Sziget (2011)

MZ Zomick, who coined "PSS," defines it as a temporary suffering of those unable to bid farewell to communist socialism.

divided we stand

united we fall

hypocracy now

democracy later

Mathew Z. Zomick & Taco in Budapest Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Farewell to Communism" Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

"Farewell to Communism I" by Matthew Z. Zomick (2011)

"Farewell to Communism II" by Matthew Z. Zomick (2011)

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

ArtTraveler notes:

After living at the Hotel Queen Mary in Budapest (3.5 stars), I heartily recommend it: old on the outside, otherwise totally modern (23 rooms); 

The owner and staff are affable and speak English and German. Tel: 0036-1-413-3510; www.hotelqueenmary.hu; info@hotelqueenmary.hu.

Visit Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. 

See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

"Spanish Life Stilled," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)

You may reach me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 915 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.