Kisterem is thrilled to present Katalin Káldi’s latest solo exhibition. The central theme of the exhibition is the number 2 itself, the meaning of which the artist explores from different perspectives and through different media.
“I often feel that what Katalin Káldi is doing is counting – in space and on the two-dimensional plane. Consciously and unconsciously, she follows a numerical order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – from the countable to the uncountable, the finite to the infinite, and the measurable to the immeasurable. She sometimes playfully switches the steps, thereby breaking the monotony.“
excerpt from Dávid Fehér: Doubt and Oneness – On the new works of Katalin Káldi
Katalin Káldi’s very consistently built oeuvre is connected to numbers and related linguistic forms in many ways. Even her earliest works, around 1996, were related to concepts such as one and unity or two and doubt. Later, in 2014, in her DLA dissertation, she (also) paid special attention to these concepts.
On the etymology of the word ‘doubt’, she wrote in her thesis: ‘it does matter how many elements make up a structure or a shape. The repetition begins with two. The duality carries with it doubt – as various European languages so vividly express: English doubt and double, German zwei and zweifel (the Hungarian kétely or doubt is a German transposition, according to the Historical Etymological Dictionary of the Hungarian Language), and even Italian dubbio and doppio. Two evokes the antithesis after the thesis, the negation or the choice, a moral premise. Doppelgänger. The other. The mirror, the shadow world, the other world. Uncertainty and temptation.”
The ideas quoted from the artist’s DLA thesis can be seen immediately come to life when looking around the exhibition spaces of Kisterem. The compositions, created in different media and techniques, show the repetition and duality of human and animal figures, geometric and landscape shapes, visual phenomena and sensations. The artist has created each double by symmetrically duplicating a shape or by reflecting a phenomenon (glow) in the centre. However, despite the compositional schemes that can be easily coded visually, the ambiguity implied by the duality can strike us unexpectedly as we approach each work. For, as we have become accustomed to seeing, the apparent simplicity of ‘saying little’ always raises universal, or even metaphysical, questions. Concerning her painting, I have previously put it this way: “The basic definition of Káldi’s object painting, embedded in a monochrome tradition, could be described as a visual repository of condensed answers to philosophical questions.” Looking back over the years, all that needs to be added is that the same applies not only to her paintings, but also to her objects and installations. For her, the thesis in its evidential unity can never be interesting. Looking back over the years, all that needs to be added is that the same applies not only to her paintings, but also to her objects and installations. For her, the thesis in its evidential unity can never be interesting. The unity of the one can only become interesting to her in a dialogue of thesis and antithesis that establishes a doubt, most of all as the doubled one, the duplicate, the copy, the mirrored, the mapped, or the shadow one. Or even as the non-existent ‘one and the same’, which we know for certain is an illusion, the disconcerting illusion of ‘appearing’ to be the same.
The earlier Káldi compositions related to the concepts of two and doubt were still created with axially symmetrical duplications of “ideal forms” such as Two Glasses, Plate and Reflection, One and a Half Weight, My Foot, Two Bowls, or even Nuremberg.
However, the latest works for the exhibition further articulate the notion of two and the doubt they raise. Indeed, Káldi reflects on the reality and/or falsity of the physical and the metaphysical, the material and the genetic, and the mental and the phenomenological doubles. And, as we have come to expect, the artist’s attention is focused on the world of the organic creatures of the universe as much as it is on the regularities that determine the existence of inorganic forms.
The works, loosely arranged in the fabric of the exhibition, form two groups of works, one of painted canvases and the other of bakelite objects, which have been a new material in Káldi’s practice for some time, giving an impression of both archaic and futuristic.
The first object to catch the eye is the Bakelite figurine ensemble, one of the focal points of the exhibition. The composition can be linked to the art historical paraphrases so dear to Káldi, but rarely seen in her art, such as a 4th century Roman antique floor mosaic or a remake of a composition from a famous painting by the Baroque giant Guido Reni. The Bakelite dolls that come to life on this wall installation evoke, but only very distantly, the angular, stylised human figures of Giovanni Battista Bracelli’s prints, almost always in pairs, from the Florentine Baroque engraver. The enigmatic nature of the composition is further enhanced by the size of the dolls, the angularity of their bodies and limbs, the static and acrobatic nature of their movements, and the elusiveness of their relations. Moreover, the enigma is not resolved when we try to get closer to the bakelite used to create their forms, the first real plastic. The material that changed the history of mankind forever 117 years ago, in 1907, when it was created ex nihilo from an artificial compound of phenol formaldehyde as a completely new synthetic material. So far, Káldi has only used the glossy amber-coloured material to create geometric shapes, 7 and 8 sided forms, double horizons and tower-like structures. The New Shield of 2021 was a slight exception to this series of shapes, as its form was already linked to the reality of Káldi’s own body, her own arm. The cultic material has now become a figure, two figures who are not mirror images of each other, not even shadows of each other, but two of them, one and the other. One standing upright and the other upside down, standing on his hands. And looking at the straight arm of the figure standing upright, almost threateningly commanding, it is impossible not to think of the long line of Noli me tangere depictions in Christian iconography…
Another novelty of Káldi’s use of bakelite is that this time, in addition to the resin-coloured kind, she also used black bakelite to create some of the objects. The jet-black shimmering surfaces and sci-fi futuristic shapes of Outside and Inside give the impression of cosmic objects from an alien culture or residues left behind after an alien invasion, as do the angular shapes of the amber-coloured Head I and Head II and the composition 5665.
The objects created from the duplicated forms, like most of the painted compositions, are axially symmetrical, but a centrally symmetrical motif, the Angular Sun, also appears among the painted canvases. The brilliant yellow background of the painting(s) is in itself a reflection on the sun as the brightest celestial body, but in Káldi’s case the yellow colour is also a reference to light itself, the reality of which is inseparable from shadow. The duality of light and shadow is ultimately the essence of painting. They are two of the most important elements of painting, which could hardly exist without each other, just as the Italian Renaissance, chiaroscuro, the illusion of space and depth in painting could not exist without one and the other.
And last but not least, with the 2nd landscape paintings, such as Lake, Danube I and Danube II, Káldi returns to one of the classic genres of painting that is also one of her favourites: the landscape. In 2012, the series of landscapes composed of the number 2, painted with refined tonal gradations, was opened by the Regular Landscape. At that time, the details of the mountainous landscape were not yet reflected or duplicated by the refraction of air layers at different temperatures, or even by the allusion of a mirage. In comparison, the yellow landscapes of the lake, composed of twos, and the views of the Danube coast already show a bewildering illusory juxtaposition. Just as the delicately painted mountain ranges, which duplicate themselves, have a strongly disconcerting effect.
But the gaze is not only deceived by the light, but also by the darkness, in the browning phase of the evening, when the shapes of the wild animals are only shadowy silhouettes against the darkening tones of the landscape, and only the difference in size of the shapes makes us think that one is a bear and the other a wild boar.
Mónika Zsikla