“The codified world which we inhabit no longer signifies process or becoming. It tells no stories, and inhabiting it does not mean acting. That it has ceased to mean this, is what is known as the crisis of values. For we are still largely programmed by texts – programmed for history, for science, for political programes, for art. We read the world, for instance logically and mathematically. But the new generation, programmed by techno-images, no longer shares our values. And we don’t yet know which meaning the techno-images surrounding us are programming for.” Vilém Flusser, 1978

The break with history, as described by Flusser, is radically echoed by Gábor A. Nagy: in his paintings, all historical texts which we are potentially still programmed with are ultimately condemned to be meaningless. Composed of lyrical fragments, these paintings reduce the world to a black monochrome surface, upon which figures appear to float like ciphers – they have become an intangible motive. The paintings’ revocation and negation of both image background and figuration results in a general, symbolically charged sense of distance and placelessness, that suggests an ahistorical relationship to the world. The narrative context and relationships appear to loose themselves in this blackened-out environment. Thus Nagy’s images, lacking a horizon and perhaps even a space, comment on an uprooted, demystified, and hyper-technological civilization, whose overall out-of-focus state is almost impossible to represent. Nagy rises to the challenge with comparatively archaic technical means.

Uwe Goldenstein