János Iván Kárpáti: To take the liberty of doing something
October 31– November 14 2018
Artkartell projectspace
The Artkartell projectspace proudly presents the solo show of János Iván Kárpáti in the projectspace. The ‘To take the liberty of doing something’ exhibition is directing the magnifying glass on the almost invisible micro-phenomenons of the everyday life as a celebration of the beauty of banality and turns the touchscreen, which can be found in most people’s pockets, into an artistic surface.
Though the radar experts put the conception of the touchscreen back in 1965 and it spread widely in 1980s in connection with drawer gaming softwares, these applied a resistive technique that means they covered the display with a transparent, flexible layer. Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007 and revolutionised the market of smartphones creating the monarch and iconic form and usage of the smartphone. The new generational, capacitive technology later used a solid, transparent protecting layer (glass or plastic) where the electronic field appears on the outer side. The alteration caused by the fingers of the user disturbs and leads the charge off and the sensors placed in the corners of the screen record and transmit it to the software. As the commercials suggest the idealistic image of smartphones are always immaculate in the reality the touch screens are mostly full of tiny cracks (despite the gorilla glass that is meant to be resistant to be broken) and fingerprints. While the usage of the mobile phones our fingers create an abstract gesture-drawing on the monochrome surface that continuously overwrites itself. The sweat mixed with fat sifts through our pores and they leave an unwanted mark on the screen. The evolutional biologists have a debate on what the primal use of the fingerprint is, the perception of textures, the handling of things underwater or the help in the regeneration of bruises but it is for sure that the liquid filtering through the skin leaves a significant trail on every artificial smooth surface. While most people became professional photographers with the help of the smartphone they also became expressive painter machines thanks for the the constant scrolling, swiping and zooming. János Iván Kárpáti is focusing our attention on this “by-product art” while he is raiding between our everyday objects as a future archeologist.
As he writes: “ The significant part of my work deals with the by-products of everyday life and the reinterpretation of these on an intellectual and artistic sense. I am interested in the connection of primal human existence and the objects surrounding it and the deeper mental processes the it results. I often create fragile and willingly temporary objects and series of works which become permanent through the process of documentation, I call it ‘performative objectivism’. I deal with this topic in the Artkartell projectspace. The starting point of my series Conference Call 1–5. is the summary of the expressive gestures of telecommunication. A fragile snapshot, a visual mood from an age when these means of communication will be out-of date and usage. The light-boxes placed in the gallery space also focus on the topic of banality surrounding us. I work with the help of coincidence and profound paranormality using my own smartphone. This kind of method makes the whole process more spontaneous and personal while sets a visual and technical limit.
János Iván Kárpáti was born in 1981 in Budapest, lives and works in Budapest and Vienna. He had solo shows in Telep Gallery (2010), Lollipop Factory (2015), LLPlatform (2017), Pince (2018), ISBN book+gallery (2018)
