The current selection of the works of Áron Kútvölgyi-Szabó disrupt the monolith truth definition which is traditionally associated with experience and acquainted knowledge. Meanwhile the enigmatic compositions of the exhibition give examples for the activities such as reconstruction and attribution of meaning, which activities are not useless but they cannot produce certain success.
The method that is inquisitive about the relation between knowledge and ignorance are not a new phenomenon in the works of Áron Kútvölgyi-Szabó. The one and a half year earlier installed A grey life (Recollection – OFF Biennale Budapest) and its private history oriented research project was focusing on the overlapping knowledge-possibilities that are contoured by the manifold readings and truths. More precisely this research highlighted the “real” history which cannot be reconstructed, and which is not blurred by the lack of information but by the divergence of the accessible information.
The exhibited works are not based on such explicitly personal fundament as the previous examples. These new works are related with more cold and universal experiences. As immediate antecedent can be named the In between grids exhibition (Plusmínusnula Gallery, Žilina, Slovakia), that showed his interest on the grid motive which plays a significant role in the experience and the systematization of knowledge.
Semi-understandable coding systems, seemingly fitting fragments and intentionally disarranged and so uncertain representations are in the focus of the exhibited works. One of the basic elements is covering of the information with the tools of overloading or overlapping; and the uncertain identification of assumed set of signs. An example for the first method is the fax paper exhibited in the first room, and for the latter strategy the four pieces collage series, which are made by dismantling and seemingly correctly reconstructing different camouflage patterns.
Parallel to the epistemological questions of knowledge and ignorance the works constantly make us to face with undeniable materiality of the objects and compilations – he also deals with the problems of transparency on the level of material. This aspect is shown most obviously by the pair of scans depicting a folded nylon layer and by the pack of formerly classified documents. The inaccessibility does not only appear in connection with the revoke of the visibility but also trough the inaccessible, specific knowledge, like the three huge format images which are consisted of circuit diagrams and special drawing tools.
The diversity of materials, colors and topology is key feature of the exhibition and this diversity also plays an important role in the installed object collages – the cloud print which is fragmented by the different paper qualities, the set of images and personal belongings which are placed in and on the boxlike frame, and also the multiple-layer, MDF and OSB installation of the inner room which consists a collage, similar to the previous one with the cloud, and an enigmatic selection of images.

Áron Kútvölgyi-Szabó simultaneously participate at the Interference group exhibition of the Trafó Gallery. The exhibited installation is the outcome of the same research but with different accents than the works of the Ignorances.

Curated by Ferenc Margl

Courtesy of the artist and Labor Gallery
Photocredit Réka Hegyháti