Kovách, Gergő: Picnic in May (2003)

Gergő Kovách is a member of the young generation of sculptors who have a knack for experimentation and humour, but whose works are occasionally overshadowed by “bad art” while they combine material and form, style and technique beyond measure. The artist first exhibited his series of four in 2003, out of which two were acquired by the museum’s collection. The silver-painted small figures and objects grow out of sphere segments that resemble a warped model railway table, forming simple scenes inducing diverse associations in the spectator. The first displays wild animals in a landscape, flocking around a camping figure. The second shows a company having a picnic on a meadow. According to the artist, the first scene evokes the figure of St. Francis, preaching to the birds and the wolf. However, this figure is wearing a skirt, and among the dogs, geese, wolves and rabbits, the four-legged creature closest to him is apparently a man on all fours. The second scene is a paraphrase of Pál Szinyei Merse’s Picnic in May: the members of the – perhaps slightly tipsy – company feasting on the meadow are merrily whiling away the time far from the big city; their arrangement and gestures distantly recall the painting from 1873, one of the earliest examples of Hungarian plein air. The series as a whole may be considered as a kind of experiment to create statue groups, sculptural scenes in a small, scale model format. These were followed by works of larger scale by the artist (e.g.: Pig Tower in the new building of the College of Dunaújváros, with the collaboration of the Garmada group.) (Krisztina Szipőcs)