This February, the
MoCCA decided to showcase two artists with seemingly little in common. In the main space was a collection of large abstract panel paintings that make up John Brown’s show “The Visceral THING”. These immense works line the walls of the high-ceilinged room, large and overwhelming, isolated and grand. Annexed to a far corner, quite separate from the main exhibition space, is a small white room in which the 60 drawings that make up
Balint Zsako’s “Bernardi Collection” are hung. It is a quiet and subtle space; the small pieces are hung in little wooden shadow frames around the room, some in gridded clusters and some isolated. The works themselves are quirky little things, rife with sexual content, imaginative mechanical apparatuses and botanic
al motifs. Incredibly, while the enormous abstracts in their large exhibition space are, in essence, complete opposites to the small figurative drawings in their little white cube, both left me with that feeling of wonderment that characterizes an artistic experience.
It is the work of Balint Zsako that I will focus on here, though, because while it seemed to be secondary in the exhibition space to the grandiose works of John Brown, I found that the collection had a much greater impact on me. The strange little drawings, no more than 12 x 16 inches, are executed in a manner that could be called “naïve”, drawing perhaps from childhood doodles or cave drawings in their depiction of the human figure. The backgrounds are left blank, generally either white or black, and the figures are often showed in profile, emphasizing this “primitive” association. And yet, the content includes elaborate mechanical creations that deny this association true validity.
The drawings are a mingling of opposites, filled with juxtapositions that send the mind twirling in confusion and curiosity. They are mixed media works, created both with spontaneous seeming watercolour strokes and meticulous ink line work. In that sense, they are playful and free while maintaining an almost holy precision. While they draw out a feeling of childhood innocence with their simplistic forms, that innocence is subverted by the vaguely sinister sexual content of the pieces. Sexually deformed creatures, human-bird hybrids complete with sexual organs, bodily fluids… all are executed in a disturbingly childish way. The organic imagery in the drawings is often altered by the stark, blank technological element. These oppositions twist and turn the mind to create an undeniable sense of unease.
One theme that I found particularly striking among these works is that of bondage. Figures are tied to other figures with strings in strange and unreasonable ways. A pinky finger might be connected by a string to another figure’s ear or penis or another body part. In the end we are often left with a web of connections. The same is true of the machines that seem to splice and separate body parts, while acting as a mechanical web of connection between them. The work implies a vaguely medical, vulnerable sensation. This contributes even more to the sense of unease that the work encourages. It is self-contradictory and quite intriguing as a whole. While I found the work rather shocking, I left with a feeling of awe and almost a sacred holiness, as if I had just spent my time looking at 14th century manuscript illuminations.
Balint Zsako was born in Budapest, Hungary to a family of artists and has kept their tradition with excellence. His work is fascinating and definitely worth taking the time to look at. In this particular venue, it serves almost as a little contemplative shrine away from the large overwhelming abstractions of John Brown.
