István Felsmann (1984) debuts with his first solo exhibition at the acb Gallery. The audience may already be familiar with the works of the artist – a recent graduate of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts – from a number of group exhibitions, as well as from the cover and contents of the Hungarian edition of Flash Art. Felsmann has been constructing his relief-like image objects using Legos, which have now become his trademark, since 2009. Furthermore, his visual journal, composed of daily produced pencil drawings and published on the internet – an entire wall-full of which was presented this year at the exhibition of Derkovits Scholarship winners in Műcsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest – also comprises an important part of his artistic activity. In addition to visual art, Felsmann is also interested in music, which influences many of his installations and performances.  

At the exhibition, Felsmann presents, among other works, the latest pieces of his Lego Reliefs. Built from standard component units, these reliefs simultaneously engage viewers’ artistic, philosophical and pop-cultural sensitivities, drawing to the surface childhood memories, which have perhaps been forgotten. The superimposed layers of science, cities, and the arts, as well as digitalized information and concepts and objects that can be disassembled and reassembled, serve as an almost inexhaustible resource for the continuously evolving group of artworks.     

With reference to his Lego Reliefs, Felsmann writes: “The Lego pieces tautologically take the place of bricks, pixels and data carriers. In my pictures of various surfaces, I intentionally include mistakes – protrusions, negative forms, color defects, sometimes matching together ill-fitting things – similarly to how misguided urban planning or programming errors render undesirable or unexpected details visible. It is the aesthetics of these mistakes or errors and their effect on other visual information within the image that I am currently interested in. Because of the nature of the medium, however, numerous other directions and layers of interpretations are also possible.”   

In addition to the paintings, the installation entitled Family China Set will also be featured in acb Attachment, and will gain its final form as a result of the opening performance.

The performance will be presented with the contribution of Dániel Somló.