Attila Szücs - Specters and Experiments

This richly illustrated volume presents the extensive oeuvre of Attila Szücs (*1967 in Miskolc), one of Hungary's most important contemporary painters. Szücs works with old newspaper clippings, postcards, photographs, and film stills, adding new meaning to these traces of the collective memory in his works. Besides issues concerning the culture of remembrance and memory research, the tendencies of East and Central European painting and the artist's early experiences with totalitarianism have influenced his art. The incursion of the uncanny into the familiar manifests in the large oil paintings: ghostly, absent protagonists; peculiar furniture; and everyday objects stand isolated in deserted spaces, melancholic in their lack of relationship to anything else. The masterful use of light and shadow, in combination with unexpectedly harsh colors, reinforces the surrealistic impression of these scenes. Dream and memory dissolve into each other, creating a fascinating state of suspension in Szücs' visual universe. Exhibition: Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary (16.12.2016-19.02.2017).