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Der kleine Jil beschützt die Schönen und Starken, 2009
Oil on canvas
150 x 220 cm
Àkos Birkàs
Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig
16.01.2010 - 03.04.2010
Àkos Birkàs (born 1941) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest from 1959 through 1965. His abstract portraits are reckoned among the most significant artworks by Hungarian artists since the 1970s. Since 2005 his works are based on newspaper photographs from the daily press collected over a long period of time. In these he observes most varied political, social but also filmhistorical topics and considers the further editing of photography as a reflection of societal events.
The portrait as a classical genre is being transformed into a medium for the depiction of communicative situations. Àkos Birkàs: "I think the realism in painting still has a great communicative potential. The interest in an accented communicative painting leads to the question of thematic images that again leads to political questions." At the same time the painting supports the establishment of the truth, written in its slowness. Akos Birkas: "My work is predominantly about that reflection. That is also connected to the slow painting's process of creation".