CV

Before the change of regime, I was born in 1988 in Győr. Since 2016, I have been consciously using the term KristofLab as a kind of brand referring to interdisciplinarity and my media art activities. I often work in a team or create collaborations with other artists. I experiment with the possibility of crossing boundaries between art genres. I graduated from the Hungarian University of Fine Arts with a degree in graphic arts (2012) and then as a teacher of fine arts (2013). In 2011 I studied with an Erasmus scholarship in Dresden (Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden). Currently, I am participating in the Budapest Art Mentor program, which introduces Hungary’s gap-filling training into the art management process with the help of professional performers. I worked regularly until 2023 with the Ziggurat Project, which experiments with various co-artistic collaborations, mainly on site-specific experimental performances from Norway to the V4 countries. In recent years I have been involved in several international projects with the support of Visegrad Found and Creative Europe. I have been part of several residency programmes and have been awarded several prizes, such as the Republican Scholarship. In 2022, I was awarded the Derkovits Scholarship and shortlisted for the Strabag Art Prize.

In addition to the social reactions in my painting – which I express in various thematic series – my aim is to push the boundaries between figurality and abstraction, to give them a new meaning. I explore this process in a staged way in my art, as figurative elements disappear and, through the means of abstraction, are transformed into patches of colour delimited by edges, ragged surfaces or reduced lines. I systematically initiate this method by using the tools of digital art. I use various image manipulation techniques such as colour and jpg image coding system manipulations and digital programs such as Vj software. I further process the manipulated images and create digital collages in Photoshop, from which several versions are produced as sketches. In the time-consuming process of creating digital previsuals, I then sort them as the next stage, further reducing the visual appearance through manual painting, during which some details disappear or change from the sketch. Through these processes, I re-conceptualise the view of the original real image, so that the real view is only present as the basis for the formal and compositional elements. The fictive pictorial elements are intended to concentrate the concrete view and the urban environment, to reveal its forces, dynamics and even its historical or latent aspects and motives that are not visually present, i.e. to show an indirect layer.

I based the development of the abstraction process underlying the paintings on the phenomenon of glitch. The aesthetics of the glitched digital images, beyond the visual and compositional connections, can be put in dialogue with the network of metaphors associated with the ‚city’ – as a self-operating program – constantly evolving, riddled with errors and potential for error. The digital glitch differs from the analogue form in terms of speed, for example, the image produced by the failure of a memory card is the result of chemical and physical reactions, like the erosion of a painting over decades, but both ultimately produce an abstracted version.

My working method is based on a kind of research and laboratory work. My artistic thinking is based on a method of experimentation, often collaborating with artists active in other artistic fields. In my installations and performances I combine several artistic disciplines, placing my works in space rather than on flat surfaces. I often use transitory media such as video, sound or dance. Through interdisciplinary activity, I aim to continually expand and stretch my own vision. That is why I use a name separate from my person, thus distancing myself from myself towards an artistic activity.

Using the city as a point of departure for my art, I found a symbolic but at the same time a concept that everyone can experience in a sensual way, in which I can address the social problems – globalisation and its effects, environmental problems, war or social inequalities – that are a major concern in our society today. I elaborate these ideas through my series of paintings that reflect on the identity of the individual, the changes brought about by digitalism and social media, historical influences and social situations. Buildings are the fabric of the city, they define its identity, New York is the skyscrapers, Paris the apartment buildings, Miskolc and Székesfehérvár the panels. Understood in this way, the skyscraper can be used as a symbol of social issues arising from capitalism, just as the block of flats is a symbol of social problems. And the lonely empty buildings can be paralleled with the loneliness that stems from the digital age, as the city only lives if its spaces and buildings are used. Guy Debord’s theory of alienation has crucial implications in this regard, as the society of the ‚spectacle’ has moved to a new level as our living space is increasingly shifted into virtual space through the use of our digital devices.

Date of birth: 05/ 09/1988 Győr (Hungary)
Nationality: Hungarian

Gallery representation – Godot Labor

Studies:

2019- 2020 Budapest Art Mentor Program
2011 Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden (erasmus scholarship)
2007- 2012 Hungarian University of Fine Arts – Specialisation in Graphic Arts

Selected Award – Grants – Residency:

2023 ECHO academy – Art Quarter Budapest (Hu)
2022 Im Game – Creative Europa program – (LV, GR, HU)
2022 Strabag Art award, shortlist
2022 Derkovitcs Gyula scholarship
2020 Master of Light – professional jury praise, and the Hungarian Architecture Special Award
2019 Residency – Tpolcany, Slovakia, Our Home Place, KristofLab Ziggurat Project in Nástupište 1-12,
2019 Residency – Netherland, Eindhoven, Future Repair Machine, Art House of United Cowboys
2018 Residency – Tpolcany, Slovakia, performing with Ziggurat Project in Nástupište 1-12
2018 Residency – Stockmolm, Sweden, performing with Dokter Sybrig in Weld
2017 Ludwig Museum – Creative Europe program CAPP (Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme) | with Ziggurat Project
2017 Erasmus + 7 ROADS 1 PATH – Euroculture En Pays Gentiane 2017 | Ziggurat Project, France
2017 Placc and Scenekunst Østfold – PICTURE Budapest – Østfold c. project | Budapest Hungary Moss
and Fredrikstad Norway | with Ziggurat Project
2016 IVF – V4 CREATIVE YOUTH | Banska Bystrica, Slovakia | with Ziggurat Project
2014 Unicredit Young Artist scholarship
2010 Erasmus scholarship, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden
2009 Hungarian Republican Scholarship
2009 Menyhért Tóth scholarship

Selected solo or double exhibitions:

2023 Supera Alta Glory in the highest …to God?, Barabás Villa, Budapest (HU)
2023 HIGH-LEVEL, Godot Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2021 Camouflage – Paikka Gallery – Budapest (HU)
2021 Our Home Place – To be Győr, Torula Art Space, Győr (HU)
2021 Runtime error, Miskolc Gallery, Miskolc (HU)
2021 ERROR, Godot Labor – Godot Institute of Contemporary Art, Budapest (HU)
2020 Color of Structure, Gallery IX és ByArt Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2020 Concrete Questions / Konkrét kérdések (with Balázs Csizik), Hegyvidék Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2019 Our Home Place – KristofLab & Ziggurat Project – Nástupište 1-12 Galéria, Topoľčany, (SK)
2019 KristofLab & Ziggurat Project: Fusions, SMart project, Trafó, Budapest (HU)
2018 BLOCK, K.A.S Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2018 Budapest Pixel, Magyar Műhely Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2015 The Two Faces of PestBuda (with Bianka Dobó), Szép Műhely, Budapest (HU)
2015 FREEDOM!, Bakelit Multi Art Center, Budapest (HU)
2014 VACUUM (with István Mórocz), Három Hét Gallery, Budapest (HU)

Selected group exhibitions and media performance:

2023 KolLabor’23, G.I.C.A. Godot Labor, Budapest (HU)
2023 Flashback, Klauzál 6 Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2023 I’ts Fine, Bunker Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2023 Natural Light, Liszt Institute Brussels, Brussels, (B)
2022 Art Market Budapest, Magyar Műhely Gallerií, Budapest
2022 KolLabor’22, G.I.C.A. Godot Labor, Budapest (HU)
2022 11. International Groteque Trennal, Kunsthalle, Budapest (HU)
2022 Foundation – The spirit of the place of the city, Miskolc Gallery, Miskolc (HU)
2022 top_OS csop_Ort | Community | Bulding, István Csók Gallery, Székesfehérvár (HU)
2022 Derkó2022, Kunsthalle, Budapest (HU)
2022 CLASH, The Holy Art Gallery, London (UK)
2022 My Place, MANYI, Budapest (HU)
2022 01, MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2021 Przestrzenie_KOBRO, Sztuka Nowa Theater – Komuna Warszawa, Warsaw (PL)
2021 Intosomnia – danceperformance (Stage design), G.I.C.A. Budapest (HU)
2021 Art Market Budapest, Magyar Műhely Gallery & Godot Labor Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2021 KOL-LABOR’21 – Godot Labor Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2021 Our Home Place – Performance -, Három Holló, Budapest (HU)
2021 City of Shadow, K.É.K. Contemporary Architecture Center, Budapest (HU)
2021 Nyitnikék, Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, Berlin (GER)
2020 LUX, MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2020 Art Market Budapest – Magyar Műhely Gallery – Budapest (HU)
2020 Godot ART Fair, G.I.C.A, Budapest (HU)
2020 G6 VI. Biennal of Graphic Arts of Transylvania, Sfântu Gheorghe (RO)
2020 Explorer 3.0 – Budapest Art Mentor 2019-2020 – Budpest Projekt Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2020 Kol-Labor, G.I.C.A. GodotLabor, Budapest (HU)
2020 Both Ways, Trieste Contemporanea, Triest (IT)
2020 HOME by LoosenArt – international group exhibition , Millepiani, Rome, (IT)
2020 What About Tomorrow, ART VEINE platform (online exhibition), Rio de Janeiro (BR)
2020 Art and Game, MANK, Szentendre (HU)
2019 SETUP, MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2019 Art Market Budapest, Magyar Műhely Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2019 66. Autumn Fair in Vásárhely, Alföldi Gallery, Hódmezővásárhely (HU)
2019 Work books , (Hungarian Artist’s Book Association) K.A.S Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2019 Panel, MODEM Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen (HU)
2019 TRANS DUNA SALON, Die Labile Botschaft, Vienna, (AT)
2019 Spot, Magyar Műhely Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2019 Paradise City – Art Capital, Ámos Imre-Anna Margit Museum, Szentendre (HU)
2018 ICIA – International Competition for Intermedia Artwork – 2018, Opcja Gallery, Krakkow, (PL)
2018 DECODE, Faur Zsófi Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2018 65. Autumn Fair in Vásárhely, Alföldi Gallery, Hódmezővásárhely (HU)
2018 V4 Art Conects – V4 Art Connects: Structures / Illusions / Interactions, MIKVE and Castle Garden, Budapest (HU)
2018 I Wash My Hands – Semmelweis 200, (Hungarian Artist’s Book Association) Karinthy Salon, Budapest (HU)
2018 Common Affairs | Collaborative Art Projects – Arboretum, Ludwig Museum, Budapest (HU)
2017 PX, MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2017 Exhibition of Hungarian Artist’s Book Association, Oliver Bonnin Gallery, Paris, (FR)
2017 Space-Pictures, MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2017 DUNAPEST festival, #ERROR707 – Runningteather, Margaret island (HU)
2017 Ugly Artworks Random II. MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2017 Upmost Layer II., Veresegyháza, Udvarház Gallery (HU)
2017 RGB, MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2016 30 years ago, University of West Hungary, Győr (HU)
2016 GIF EXHIBITION, MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2015 SMS, MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2015 Eurasian Art Festival, Gallery of Konkuk University, Seöul, (KR)
2014 Space Makers, MAMŰ Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2014 Find Your Way, Moving Art Group, Rovas Academy, Kosice (SK)
2014 Hungarian and Swedish Artist’s Books, Hungarian Artist’s Book Association, University of
Umeå (SWE)
2014 Synaesthesia, Hegyvidék Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2013 Book Image, Hungarian Artist’s Book Association, Vaszary Picture Gallery, Kaposvár (HU)
2013 II. International Biennal of Drawing and Graphic Arts, Győr (HU)
2013 Talking Pictures, Hegyvidék Gallery, Budapest (HU)
2013 Crisis, Europa Gallery, Brassov (RO)
2013 Flying – Birds in fine arts, Miklós Borsos Museum, Győr (HU)
2013 Art Expo FRISS, Művészet Malom, Szentendre (HU)
2012 Space as inspiration, PP Centre, Budapest (HU)
2011 I. International Biennal of Drawing and Graphic Arts, Győr (HU)
2011 Moving Art Group in the Magia Mundi festival, Nossen, (GER)
2011 XXV. Triennial of Graphic Arts, Miskolc (HU)
2011 Hungarians-Wengry, Jan Matejko Academy Of Fine Arts in Krakow (PL)
2011 Eastern European Printmakers Today, Muskatstudios, Boston (USA)
2010 I. Biennal of Graphic Arts of Transylvania, Sfântu Gheorghe (RO)
2010 Visions of the Future, Siemens Forum, Münich (GER)
2009 XII International Biennial of Small Graphics and Exlibris, Ostrow Wielkopolski (PL)
2009 II Goldener Kentaur Art Competition, Münchner Künstlerhaus, Münich (GER)