Balint Zsako‘s Old Master Paintings are showing in Toronto at Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects from September 18th to October 18th. You may recall I interviewed Zsako about this series when he was showing them in New York. Here’s an excerpt:
Although your new collage work continues to express themes you’ve often worked with — absurdity, humour, the figure — visually they’re a departure from most of your past work. What influenced you to reposition and appropriate the Old Masters?
There are a number of reasons why Old Masters reproductions are very attractive as source material. One of my main goals in this series was to make the finished images as seamless as possible; I wanted the works to look like they could have been painted that way a long time ago. To do this i am looking at thousands of reproductions, sometimes looking for a hand that is the right size, facing in the right direction, that is the right tone, making the right gesture. The quantity of available reproductions of this kind of work is what allows me to make my collages possible.
Most of my source material comes from auction catalogues. I love the high quality of the reproductions and also that the works are obscure or by minor painters. You can’t really collage Leonardo or Rubens these days because everyone will recognize it, after Warhol this would be exploring an entirely different conceptual theme, one that I am not concerned with at the moment.
The style of the painting has to match as well. This is what’s great about old paintings, you can go from Renaissance painting up to the Pre-Raphaelites and find an abundance of source material that can be matched seamlessly.
Also, re-arranging the meaning would not be possible the same way if i were to use modern or contemporary art. There is a language of Old Master paintings which allow for the juxtapositions and contrasts that I am interested in. In my work you notice that the woman completely covered in flowing fabric with everything but her breast and a knife covered looks plausible, but it doesn’t match up with anything else in art history books. This is much more difficult to do after modern art where many more things are permitted, and the rules are more open.
I’m really looking forward to seeing them in person. The opening reception is on Friday, September 18 from 6 PM to 9 PM. Show ends Sunday, October 18.
