Miklós Erdély, The original and the copy + indigo drawings

14. 9.–14. 11. 2013

Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova

Miklós Erdély, The Original and the Copy + Indigo Drawing, 30th Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, 2013, installation view of the exhibition of the Grand Prize Winner at Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova.

Photo: Urška Boljkovac. MGLC Archive.

The exhibition of the recipient of the Honourable Mention of the 29th Biennial of Graphic Arts, where he presented his project Unguarded Money (1956). Miklós Erdély (1928–1986), artist, architect, writer, poet and filmmaker, was an important figure in the neo-avant-garde and conceptual art of Hungary. From the early 1970s he was constantly concerned with the question of the original and the copy, or more generally with the question of pictorial representation, and many of the works that he created in the spirit of the “new concept of art”, are tied to these “traditional” questions.

The photographs on display were logical and, in part, technical precursors to the drawings on indigo (carbon) paper also on display, about which he wrote in 1983: “The whole indigo thing originates from the fact that I wanted to examine the representation aspect of art … ad absurdum. The representative character of art. I thought that this is a phenomenon of magical conception, that artistic depiction is the remains of magic in our contemporary world. And if this is the remains of magic, then this should be carried out ad absurdum.” (from an essay by the curator Annamária Szőke, published in the catalogue of the 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts)

The exhibition was organised with the co-operation of the Miklós Erdély Foundation (EMA).

Curator: Annamária Szőke.