group exhibition / 12.06 – 20.08.2017

MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary

curtors: Ábel  Kónya,  István  Eliás

Arists:  Antalaci,  Marta  Antoniak, Dániel Bajkó, Barta Bence, Kata Bereczki, Natalia Buchta, Monika Chlebek, Wiktor Dyndo,  Ákos Ezer, Ron Fischer, Patr ícia  Jagicza,  Karolina Jabłońska, Gergely Kósa, Juliusz  Kosin, Kata  Könyv,   Ágnes Kupeczik,  Tomasz  Kręcicki,  Kamil  Kukla, Agata Kus, Monika Mysiak, Naomil Devil, Orr Máté , Krzysztof Piętka,  Olga Pawłowska, Cyryl Polaczek, Noémi Rácz, Justyna Smoleń, Paulina Stasik, Łukasz  Stokłosa, Róbert Sűtö, Radek Szlęzak, Szolnoki Szabloc, Wojciech Szybist, Nóra Teplán,  Ágnes Verebics, Agnieszka Wielewska

The members od Generation Y (1980-1995) have lived and are living their “active” lives in a world without an iron curtain. The early stage of these artists’ career commenced in a unified Europe, with business and social relations fundamentally different to those of the CMEA countries before. While prior to the change of regime an extremely intensive and mutual system of inspiration for the arts was in place in the Eatern Bloc countries (which was especially manifest in the link between Hungary and Poland), in the past decades the north- and southbound road of intellectual and emotional exchange has practically been deserted. Today everybody heads out west. One characteristic symbol of this phenomenon might be the termination of the legendary Krakow-bound train, the Cracovia Express, which also inspired the Hungarian songwriter Tamas Cseh. MODEM’s irregular exhibition strives to fill this void by introducing the artistic attitudes of the youngest generation today, regarded as professionals, hailing from two countries that have developed an unparalleled, both historical and cultural  bond in the past millennium. This current generation, now twenties and thirties, regard any digital tool as being natural; modern technologies provide the basis and core meaning of their everyday life. In MODEM’s show, however, they are communicating through a medium which is not only considered to be traditional but the death of which has been announced many times over owing to the new tools used in art and the conceptual attitude to work. Thus, panel painting is being reborn today, thanks to Generation Y. The show also poses the following questions: what advantages of this classic technique have been discovered by these young, debuting artists? What subject matters are involved? How do they make use of the ways of representation and expression which may be called conventional? Are they testing the limits of this medium? Finally, what innovative solutions are used as for content and visuals? Exhibition XY yields a manifold visual diary which, in addition to analyzing the state of art itself, ues powerful tools to talk about an era which now defines are lives, and looking through the prism presented by the works we may discover the hidden layers of such an age.