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Jovánovics György

Jovánovics György

Orodzony/a 3 Kwiecień 1939, Budapest
Lived in Budapest

György Jovánovics, a member of the legendary Iparterv Group, is a prominent representative of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde movement. He graduated from the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts and studied in Vienna and Paris. Thanks to a DAAD scholarship he lived in Berlin between 1980 and 1983. He participated in a number of domestic and foreign exhibitions, and also presented himself at the Venice Biennale in 1995. He has been a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest since 1990. His sculptural and other works are in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Folkwang Museum in Essen.


sculpture, installation, mixed media, painting, show in map

1957

György Jovánovics studied at the Magyar Képzőművészeti Főiskola/ Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts (1957-1960) in Budapest under the leadership of professors József Somogye (1916-1993) and Sándor Mikuse (1903-1982). In 1964 he moved abroad: first, he continued his studies at the Akademie für angewandte Kunst/ Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna under Hans Knesl (1964-1965), and later under professor H. g Adam at the Académia des Beaux-Arts/ Academy of Fine Arts in Paris (1965-1966).

1968

In 1968, Jovánovics participated in the exhibition at the headquarters of Iparterv, an industrial company, after which an entire generation of Hungarian artist was named (Imre Bak, András Baranyay, Miklós Erdély, Krisztián Frey, Tamás Hencze, György Jovánovics, Ilona Keserü, Gyula Konkoly, László Lakner, János Major, László Méhes, Sándor Molnár, István Nádler, Ludmil Siskov, Tamás Szentjóby, Endre Tót). As a sculptor, he liked to work with plaster which made it possible for him to perfectly form the desired shape, experiment with its organization, and light. At the same time, it was a great basis for secondary conceptual installations. The sculpture Részlet a Nagy Gillesből/ Detail of the Gillese the Great (1967) depicted a dressed man's torso without the upper part of the trunk and legs. It is reminiscent of the enigmatic Watteau's painting Pierot (or Gilles, 1717-1721). Through the sculpture, Jovánovics measured the importance of history, myth, and memory
Was member of IPARTERV
Iparterv I (group exhibition, Budapest)

1969

Iparterv II. (group exhibition, Budapest)

1970

György Jovánovics was actively involved in domestic cultural life


1972

[György Jovánovics] (group exhibition, Warszawa)

1973

Biennale de la Jeunesse (group exhibition, Paris)

1976

Expozíció (group exhibition, Hatvan)
Serial Works (group exhibition, Székesfehérvár)

1977

From the early 1980's, photography started to play an important role in Jovánovics work. In April 1977, he presented the Liza Wiathruck: Holos Graphos series for the first time, which he interpreted as: a blind manifest about seeing, or visual pedagogy. It was a photonovel, expositions of snapshots complemented with a text, which took much longer to create. It depicted a mysterious woman, Liza Wiathruck, and she became more mysterious, the more she hid her face behind a plaster mask. Jovánovics created her body using a technique similar to assemblage
Sorozatművek (group exhibition, Székesfehérvár)

1978

In 1979, György Jovánovics created the first plaster relief, Függöny eksztatikus bábok/ Drop-scene to the Ecstatic Marionette. His interest in such form intensified in connection with his scholarship stay at DAAD in Berlin from 1980 to 1983. He dealt with the purity of the plaster form

1979

Fotogramm (group exhibition, Budapest)

1980

Tendenciák 1970-1980 5. Egyéni utak-öt művés (group exhibition, Budapest)
Ungarische Künstler (group exhibition, Wilhelmshaven)

1981

[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Berlin)

1982

[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Berlin)
[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Hannover)

1983

[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Berlin)

1985

[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Székesfehérvár)
Contemporary Visual Arts in Hungary (group exhibition, Glasgow)
Drei Genarationen ungarischer Künstler (group exhibition, Graz)
Pillanatkép (group exhibition, Budapest)

1986

[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Berlin)
Eklektika '85 (group exhibition, Budapest)

1987

In the late 1980's, Jovánovics produced two large exterior installations: Trójai papírgyár/ Paper Factory of Troy (1988) in Seoul, and a memorial to the uprising of 1956 in Budapest 56-os Mártírok Emlékműve/ Memorial to the Martyrs of 1956 (1989). The former commission was connected with his participation in the sculptural symposium which was held on the occasion of the Olympic Games, and the latter was motivated by his strong memories. Jovánovics' Memorial to the Martyrs of 1956 is an autonomous work of art and, at the same time, it plays the role of a shrine. It represents a functional interconnection of the material, philosophical, and environmental levels. It is characterized by sophisticated and properly processed material (white concrete), thoroughly thought out placement and orientation in space, and the continuity of internal and external space.
Régi és új avantgárd 1967-75. A 20. század magyar művészet (group exhibition, Székesfehérvár)
Kortárs magyar művészet (group exhibition, Budapest)
Expressive – Central European Art since 1960 (group exhibition, Vienna)

1988

Received grant from Phillip Morris Scholarship
Zeitgenössische bildende Kunst aus Ungarn (group exhibition, Munich)
Aktuelle ungarische Kleinplastik (group exhibition, Dortmund)
7. Nemzetközi Kisplasztikai Kiállítás (group exhibition, Budapest)

1989

In the late 1980's, Jovánovics created another of his temporal and spatial illusions Képi Utazás Turner a bibliai jeleneteket/ Pictorial Journey with Turner on Biblical Scenes. It was similar to the earlier Liza Wiathruck series: it also dealt with a narrated fictional, archaic story whose heroes (commemorative of real people) were Tiepolo, Menzel, and an undisclosed contemporary Hungarian writer. Contrary to the previous series, the narration is indirect in this case.
[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Budapest)
Más-Kép (group exhibition, Budapest)
Az avantgárd vége 1975-1980. 20. század magyar művészete (group exhibition, Székesfehérvár)
Emlékmű 1956 vértanúinak a 301-es parcellában (group exhibition, Budapest)

1990

In 1991, Jovánovics participated in a symposium in Israel. In the same year, he was appointed professor of his alma mater, the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. At the Venice Biennale in 1995, Jovánovics presented a selection of his works from the early 1960's. His stay in Venice inspired him to reflect on Giorgione's The Tempest (1508-1509). He created two works: Nagy Hasáb/ Large Column and Részlet a Nagy Viharból/ Detail of the Great Tempest (1995). In 1996, the Fővárosi Képtár/Kiscelli Museum in Budapest held Jovánovics' domestic retrospective exhibition. Because of the venue (Temple Quarter), it was titled: Ut manifestius at que apertius dicam/ And the Weakest Ones will Understand. Both Italian works were installed in a new space in such manner that the model and Jovánovics' reflection intertwined using technical equipment. Thus he revived, albeit indirectly, the theme of memory and history, which he had dealt with in the 1960's: late Renaissance canvas opened to new interpretation, it regained its spiritual dimension (also thanks to the free reminiscence of Poussin's Et in Arcadia Ego from 1637-1638). The environment also played an important role as an 18th century church tower was used for the projection. Similarly, as in early films, figures were animated and materialized in a surprisingly authentic fashion through the reflection, duplication, and creation of relations between the real situation (spatial pillars and columns) and the artificially created image / sculpture.
[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Fellbach )



1994

[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Budapest)
[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Berlin)
80-as évek - Képzőművészet (group exhibition, Budapest)

1996

[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Lienz)
[György Jovánovics] (solo exhibition, Székesfehérvár)
Művek és magatartás. A 20. század magyar művészete (group exhibition, Székesfehérvár)
Mítosz, Memória, História (group exhibition, Budapest)
Abstrakt/Real (group exhibition, Vienna)
Jovánovics György: Ut Manifestius atque apertius dicam (solo exhibition, Budapest)

1997

Received award from The Kossuth Prize

1998

Ungarische Anwesenheit (group exhibition, Warszawa)
Ungarn Avangarde im 20. Jahrhundert (group exhibition, )


2000

Holos Graphos (solo exhibition, Budapest)
Books and Reliefs (solo exhibition, Budapest)
Artist Collection (group exhibition, Ljubljana )
Samizdat (group exhibition, Berlin)


2002

In the new millennium, Jovánovics dealt with and further developed the issue of the boundaries of illusion and the authenticity of a work of art. Installations from the early years of the new millennium, Dobozszobrok/ Sculptures in Boxes (2002) and Camera Obscura (2004) were freely inspired by the works of the inventor, designer, and artist Johann Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734-1804), the inventor of the chess-playing automaton which was supposed to creatively respond to the opponent's moves. He denied the accusation of deceit (there was supposed to be a man hiding in the box – the principle of Jovánovics' Sculptures in a Box) by illuminating the automaton (Jovánovics' Camera Obscura). Jovánovics created a sculpture A sötét király árnyék nélkül (Kempelen Frenhofernél)/ Black King without a Shadow (Kempelen at Frenhofer's) which was inspired by Kempelen's experiments. He also worked on a videofilm Monomotapa in cooperation with Péter Forgács. Both works were displayed at the Kempelen – ember a gépben/ Kempelen – Man in a Machine exhibition in Műcsarnok, Budapest, in 2007. In the film, Jovánovics acted as Kempelen watching the chess-playing automaton and adopted the look of Jovánovics' wife, Liza Wiathruck. It contained an allusion to Duchamp's Large Glass/ Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors (1923). In the course of the film, the artist revived and adopted the look of an important Hungarian historian of art, Ernő Marosi (1940). The soundtrack consists of twenty words which Kempelen used in the preface to his theoretical work Mechanism of Human Speech (Mechanismus der menschlichen Sprachenebst Beschreibungeinersprechenden Maschine) of 1791.
Vision Image and Perception (group exhibition, Budapest)
Situation Ungarn - Kunst vor und nach der Wende (group exhibition, Berlin)


2004

In 2004 and 2008, two exhibitions of Jovánovics' works were held at Ludwig Múzeu a Kisterem in Budapest. Contemporary works in the former, and photography cycles of the 1970's in the latter. In 2008, Bratislava City Gallery held a retrospective exhibition under the fitting title One's Own Light (2008).


2006

Prohibition and tolerance (group exhibition, Budapest)
Re:embrandt - Contemporary Hungarian Artists Respond (group exhibition, Budapest)

2007

The Northern Shore (group exhibition, Debrecen)
The Time of an Artwork / The Artwork through Time (group exhibition, Budapest)
The Artwork through Time (group exhibition, Budapest)
Formabontók I. Neoavantgárd tendenciák a magyar fotóművészetben 1965-1984. (group exhibition, Budapest)
Wolfgang von Kempelen - Mensch-[in der]-Maschine (group exhibition, Karlsruhe)
Geometrische-konstruktive Kunst aus Ungarn. Reale und Virtuelle Räume im Arithme (group exhibition, Bonn)
White-Black (group exhibition, Budapest)
Kempelen - Man in the Machine (group exhibition, Budapest)
Hommage à Kassák 120/40 (group exhibition, Bratislava)
White & Black (group exhibition, Budapest)

2008

Photographic works between 1970 and 1978. The reflection of reality on reality (solo exhibition, Budapest)
Own Light (solo exhibition, Bratislava)

2009

Dél-Francia táj 1965-66 (solo exhibition, Budapest)
Sassetta – Jovánovics (group exhibition, Budapest)
re-connaitre (group exhibition, Paks )
The Art of Tolerance (group exhibition, Bratislava)
New Acquisitions – Rarely Seen Works (group exhibition, Budapest)





2014

LUDWIG 25. The Contemporary Collection (group exhibition, Budapest)

2015

Siliconvalse. Hungarian Reality (group exhibition, Brno)

Muzeum umění Olomouc 2011-2024