Géza Perneczky
The Art of Reflection
Conceptual Photography
1970–75
Géza Perneczky is a protagonist of Hungarian conceptual art and part of the Hungarian Neo-Avant-Garde. In 1970 the artist, art historian, art critic and author emigrated to Cologne, where he lives and works until today.
Edited by Patrick Urwyler, this publication is the first comprehensive presentation of Géza Perneczky’s conceptual photography, the artist realized between 1970–75 as a dissident in Germany. The experiences of this period and Perneczky's self-conception as an artist and art historian characterize these early works. In his introductory essay the art historian David Fehér aptly describes Perneczky as a "critic of art" and "artist of critique," his conceptual practice correspondingly as "The Art of Reflection".
For this publication Perneczky's 1983 essay “How Can There Be Avant-garde If We Don't Have One – and Vice Versa” was for the first time translated and is part of this publication. In this essay Perneczky describes and contextualizes all artworks within art history, his practice as an artists and his early years in Cologne.
Géza Perneczky’s works can be found in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The Museum of Modern Art (New York), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou (Paris) and Ludwig Museum (Budapest), etc.
The publication is published and distributed by Verlag für Moderne Kunst
Art Historian, Editor and Studio Manager of Géza Perneczky
215 x 303 mm, 233 images, € 38.–
Like many other artists who worked in the field of conceptual art in the 1970s, I was looking for a basic motif as a starting point that could replace the entire cosmos of fine art, and I found this – very simply – in the word “art”.
I thought that the concept of “art cosmos” – which could stand for the entire realm of art and all its conceivable forms – could be most easily illustrated by the word “art” written on a little ball.
Installation view: Géza Perneczky: Mirrors, Capa Center, Budpest, 2019
Installation view: Géza Perneczky: Mirrors, Capa Center, Budpest, 2019
Art Bubbles (1-3), 1972
Gelatin silver print, docubrom forte paper
297 x 210 mm
AVAILABLE
Art and artistic creation appears in Perneczky’s photo-based artworks as playful experimentation, or to paraphrase Friedrich Schiller: as the “free play of the imagination.” At the same time, the close-up reflection of the distant window evokes the melancholy sentiment of longing, while the fragility of bubbles and their vacuity filled with heavy content reflects on doubts and dilemmas pertaining to the end of art.
Art and artistic creation appears in Perneczky’s photo-based artworks as playful experimentation, or to paraphrase Friedrich Schiller: as the “free play of the imagination.”
At the same time, the close-up reflection of the distant window evokes the melancholy sentiment of longing, while the fragility of bubbles and their vacuity filled with heavy content reflects on doubts and dilemmas pertaining to the end of art. The “art bubbles” are perhaps the most important pieces of Perneczky’s oeuvre, enriched with newer and newer layers of meaning today as in the years of the Cold War.
Artwork reproductions & texts
© Chimera-Project / Géza Perneczky
© David Fehér (text quote)
www.gezaperneczky.de