Márk Fridvalszki – Meeting of the Spirits

“I am usually preoccupied with historical turning points, starting points, the original, ‘primordial ’, the authentic form of motivation and reaction. In terms of my interest, therefore, I am occupied by a universal and ontological perspective, and their effects and implications for the present and the future. In most cases, I did not experience these events in time or space, therefore I did not personally experience them. I try to bridge the gaps that result from this by reading and researching, my goal is to get emotionally and spiritually close to the given case, the era that influenced the development of history. I use cultural and artistic products to try to understand and experience ‘Zeitgeist’.” MF
At the same time, the Central and Eastern European filter through which I look at the world is undeniable and can be seen in my work, both visually and conceptually.
Márk Fridvalszki, an artist living and working in Berlin, began his studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, then graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2011 and later took part in a postgraduate master’s degree course in Leipzig. Since 2014, he has been the founder and graphic editor of a publishing project and art collective called Technologie und das Unheimliche (Technology and Uncanny).

He has been exhibiting actively since 2015. The Chimera-Project Gallery, the Art + Text Gallery, the Horizont Gallery, the Artkartell Projectspace, The LLPlatform, the C³, online Budapest; the Karlin Studios in Prague; the Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin; the TIC Gallery in Brno; the Institute of Contemporary Art Dunaújváros; the Kunstraum Lakeside in Klagenfurt; the Július Koller Society in Bratislava mark the stages of his individual introduction.

Fridvalszki has been invited to a number of group exhibitions across Europe, including those of the Lehrter 17 in Berlin; the Gallery Nod in Prague; the BWA Sokół Gallery in Nowy Sącz; the D21 Kunstverein in Leipzig; the Kunstverein Kunsthaus in Potsdam; the Kunsthalle Exnergasse, in Vienna; the Ostrale Biennale; the Kisterem Gallery in Budapest; the OFF Biennale in Pécs; Dresden; at the Ljubljana Graphic Biennale at the MGLC.
He has been nominated for the Esterházy Prize three times, for the Leopold Bloom Prize in 2017, and he was awarded the scholarship of the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen in Leipzig in 2018, as well as the Schtiftung Kunstfonds in Berlin this year.

In his theoretical interpretation, Barnabás Zemlényi-Kovács, who has been cooperating with the artist for many years, claims that Márk Fridvalszki’s creative method is a kind of archeo-futurology, a consistent exploration of the sonic and visual remains of lost futures and modernist visions in a timeless age after the future. His collage-like creative practice seeks to activate forces drawn from the set of forms of late modernism, the subcultures of the early 1990s, and the spirits of these utopian moments.

Fridvalszki’s works directly evoke the inspiring artistic behaviour, the cosmic pictorial, iconic motifs of Pál Deim, Dezső Korniss and Ilona Keserű (still active today), which have become topoi and are the highlights of the collection of the Ferenczy Museum Centre and appear on the walls of the exhibition space. The Picture Gallery presents the artist’s most recent paintings, selected works from the collection of the Ferenczy Museum Centre, and a series of serigraphs created in collaboration with the museum, in the company of mural works and sound installations which have become Fridvalszki’s personal trademark.