KÁROLYI Zsigmond
painter
(Budapest, 1952. április 4.)
1970-1976: Hungarian College of Fine Arts, master: Simon Sarkantyú. Between 1976 and 1981 he taught art history at the Decorations and Design Technical High School of Budapest (Kirakatrendező és Dekoratőr Szakmunkásképző Iskola). During the period ranging from 1981 and 1987 he was a drawing teacher at the High School of Fine Arts in Budapest. Between 1987 and 1991 he worked as an adjunct at the College of Applied Arts in Budapest. Since 1990 he has been a class-head at the College of Fine Arts in Budapest, at the Painting Faculty (Head of Faculty since 1998). 1977: Award of the Theodoron Foundation of Chicago; 1982 and 1986: Artistic Award of the city of Makó, Hungary; 1986: Medal of Socialist culture, for his pedagogy work; 1986-1988: Derkovics Scholarship; 1991: Munkácsy Award; 1992: Scholarship of the Rome-Hungary Academy; 1993: half year scholarship in Vienna by KulturKontakt; 1995: scholarship of the Kulturreferat der München; 1997: Széchenyi Professor Award. Ever since the start of his college education Károlyi has been interested in questions relating to painting theory and art theory. He researches and examines the relationship between paintings, machine-produced images, and the usage of texts within the scope of his conceptual works, which were inspired primarily by the painting of Gyula Czimra, and the language analysis works conducted by Gábor Bódy and Miklós Erdélyi. His works continually revolve around such terms, the roots of which come from metaphysical antagonism of the artificial and the natural. In his early images, photographs, performances and films planes, which contain the traces of dots, lines, paint gestures, and rhythmically ranking perpendicular linear objects (e.g.: Egyenközű párhuzamosok /Parallels with identical distance/, 1978), and as cut-outs, parallelograms, which serve as frames form different perspectives (e.g.: Egyenes Labirintus Straight Labyrinth/, 1977) strain against their surroundings (portioned according to a non-artistic theory, so-called un-made worlds). The unique interchangeability of the formed (indicative of the arts) and unformed (or the surface made thus, other times simply spaces) warn of the poor tautology of intentional and unintentional. From the end of the 1970's Károlyi's quasi-realist paintings, portioned based on the basics of the Chinese Tangram game, tried, possibly with this exact tautology, in effect addressing one to give up him or herself, to escape from this seeming ultimatum. During The middle of the 1980's (following a period of short experimentation with computer animations) his tangram images of the conflict between geometry and continuous calligraphy, making use of the design and drawing methods of these, were superseded "documents" developing once again an elementary symbol, a mechanically repeated gesture into a painting texture. These may be conceived as symbols, allegories, as well as metaphors, at once, furthermore the X becomes the base motif of his images once again. These works, besides, or maybe together with all their picturesque and expressive qualities explore the immanence of art (e.g.: photographic paintings and his Fényrács-képek /Light-grid-images/, 1985-1987). His works painted between 1989 and 1990 deal with similar ideas, in which the strait lines and perpendicular linear structures made use of some 15 years before retuned for the sake of demonstrational purposes. His paintings painted on the turn of the decade constitute the unimaginable harmony between intellectuality and sensuality, in a seemingly universal, yet very personal manner, fixing the marks and repetitions of an imperfect raster system, amongst the wings of mysterious and dramatic inner spaces. These works examine the minimal movements of the originally realistic (canvas, background), the created, designed material (painted surface, facture), and the virtual-kinetic planes. Károlyi conducted his examinations in the light of the Hegelian ideal, according which "the mere repetition of something express an ideal". His paintings prepared during the beginning of the 1990's are the examples of painting Puritanism, a mode of formulation stripped to the extremes, together with the coherent contradiction: his monochrome works as a sort of veil of a painted philosophy. In the year of 1997 a seemingly significant change could be noticed in the career of Károlyi: the monochrome, geometrical style was replaced by a unique symbolic, and figural mode of design. Within the scope of these images his two sons, their toys, and the ephemeral symbols, which percolate childhood are organized into still-life pieces, or archaic image-cutouts (tondo) framed genres.
painter
(Budapest, 1952. április 4.)
1970-1976: Hungarian College of Fine Arts, master: Simon Sarkantyú. Between 1976 and 1981 he taught art history at the Decorations and Design Technical High School of Budapest (Kirakatrendező és Dekoratőr Szakmunkásképző Iskola). During the period ranging from 1981 and 1987 he was a drawing teacher at the High School of Fine Arts in Budapest. Between 1987 and 1991 he worked as an adjunct at the College of Applied Arts in Budapest. Since 1990 he has been a class-head at the College of Fine Arts in Budapest, at the Painting Faculty (Head of Faculty since 1998). 1977: Award of the Theodoron Foundation of Chicago; 1982 and 1986: Artistic Award of the city of Makó, Hungary; 1986: Medal of Socialist culture, for his pedagogy work; 1986-1988: Derkovics Scholarship; 1991: Munkácsy Award; 1992: Scholarship of the Rome-Hungary Academy; 1993: half year scholarship in Vienna by KulturKontakt; 1995: scholarship of the Kulturreferat der München; 1997: Széchenyi Professor Award. Ever since the start of his college education Károlyi has been interested in questions relating to painting theory and art theory. He researches and examines the relationship between paintings, machine-produced images, and the usage of texts within the scope of his conceptual works, which were inspired primarily by the painting of Gyula Czimra, and the language analysis works conducted by Gábor Bódy and Miklós Erdélyi. His works continually revolve around such terms, the roots of which come from metaphysical antagonism of the artificial and the natural. In his early images, photographs, performances and films planes, which contain the traces of dots, lines, paint gestures, and rhythmically ranking perpendicular linear objects (e.g.: Egyenközű párhuzamosok /Parallels with identical distance/, 1978), and as cut-outs, parallelograms, which serve as frames form different perspectives (e.g.: Egyenes Labirintus Straight Labyrinth/, 1977) strain against their surroundings (portioned according to a non-artistic theory, so-called un-made worlds). The unique interchangeability of the formed (indicative of the arts) and unformed (or the surface made thus, other times simply spaces) warn of the poor tautology of intentional and unintentional. From the end of the 1970's Károlyi's quasi-realist paintings, portioned based on the basics of the Chinese Tangram game, tried, possibly with this exact tautology, in effect addressing one to give up him or herself, to escape from this seeming ultimatum. During The middle of the 1980's (following a period of short experimentation with computer animations) his tangram images of the conflict between geometry and continuous calligraphy, making use of the design and drawing methods of these, were superseded "documents" developing once again an elementary symbol, a mechanically repeated gesture into a painting texture. These may be conceived as symbols, allegories, as well as metaphors, at once, furthermore the X becomes the base motif of his images once again. These works, besides, or maybe together with all their picturesque and expressive qualities explore the immanence of art (e.g.: photographic paintings and his Fényrács-képek /Light-grid-images/, 1985-1987). His works painted between 1989 and 1990 deal with similar ideas, in which the strait lines and perpendicular linear structures made use of some 15 years before retuned for the sake of demonstrational purposes. His paintings painted on the turn of the decade constitute the unimaginable harmony between intellectuality and sensuality, in a seemingly universal, yet very personal manner, fixing the marks and repetitions of an imperfect raster system, amongst the wings of mysterious and dramatic inner spaces. These works examine the minimal movements of the originally realistic (canvas, background), the created, designed material (painted surface, facture), and the virtual-kinetic planes. Károlyi conducted his examinations in the light of the Hegelian ideal, according which "the mere repetition of something express an ideal". His paintings prepared during the beginning of the 1990's are the examples of painting Puritanism, a mode of formulation stripped to the extremes, together with the coherent contradiction: his monochrome works as a sort of veil of a painted philosophy. In the year of 1997 a seemingly significant change could be noticed in the career of Károlyi: the monochrome, geometrical style was replaced by a unique symbolic, and figural mode of design. Within the scope of these images his two sons, their toys, and the ephemeral symbols, which percolate childhood are organized into still-life pieces, or archaic image-cutouts (tondo) framed genres.
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