ENDRE TÓT
After Budapest, Berlin
and Cologne,
I am glad
to stamp in Berlin again
Endre Tót (*1937 in Sümeg, Hungary) is one of the most important artists of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde and occupies an essential and singular position both in the Fluxus movement and in conceptual art. His extensive work encompasses a variety of media and materials such as works on paper, photography, video and painting and combines pictorial, performative and conceptual elements.
Since the early seventies, after a brief phase of more informal painting, Tót has devoted himself to mail art. He sent typewritten letters and postcards to the international art scene, thus overcoming his artistic isolation under Hungary's communist regime by exchanging ideas with the most important representatives of the Fluxus movement and Mail Art. His letters and envelopes bear stamped texts such as I'M GLAD WHEN I CAN STAMP and DOCUMENTS MAKE ME CALM. Tót also finds his central theme in mail art: nothingness and the exploration of the dichotomy of absence and presence.
With street actions, texts and typographic works through to painting, the concept of emptiness is negotiated in different variations in the areas of language, communication and action. A recurring motif is the number "0". It appears on the monochrome surfaces of the Absent Pictures, on the white surfaces of the Unpainted Canvases series and appears in the many rubber stamps, which Tót was practically unable to produce in communist Hungary and therefore asked his international contacts for help to produce them for him based on his designs.
In 1978, Endre Tót went to West Berlin at the invitation of the DAAD and emigrated to Germany. After living in Cologne for more than forty years, he returned to Berlin. The current exhibition at Galerie Mathias Güntner Berlin focuses on the Zero Paintings, the Stamp Editions and the series of Absent Paintings created in the early 1990s.
Endre Tót's works are represented in the most important international collections, including at the Centre Pompidou, The British Museum, Tate Modern, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), San Francisco Museum of Art (SFMoMA), Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, La Bibliothèque nationale de France, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Museum of Art in Łódź, Museum of Contemporary Art (Zagreb), The Kontakt Collection (Vienna), Neue Nationalgalerie, Bundeskunstammlung - Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
After Budapest, Berlin
and Cologne,
I am glad
to stamp in Berlin again
Endre Tót (*1937 in Sümeg, Hungary) is one of the most important artists of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde and occupies an essential and singular position both in the Fluxus movement and in conceptual art. His extensive work encompasses a variety of media and materials such as works on paper, photography, video and painting and combines pictorial, performative and conceptual elements.
Since the early seventies, after a brief phase of more informal painting, Tót has devoted himself to mail art. He sent typewritten letters and postcards to the international art scene, thus overcoming his artistic isolation under Hungary's communist regime by exchanging ideas with the most important representatives of the Fluxus movement and Mail Art. His letters and envelopes bear stamped texts such as I'M GLAD WHEN I CAN STAMP and DOCUMENTS MAKE ME CALM. Tót also finds his central theme in mail art: nothingness and the exploration of the dichotomy of absence and presence.
With street actions, texts and typographic works through to painting, the concept of emptiness is negotiated in different variations in the areas of language, communication and action. A recurring motif is the number "0". It appears on the monochrome surfaces of the Absent Pictures, on the white surfaces of the Unpainted Canvases series and appears in the many rubber stamps, which Tót was practically unable to produce in communist Hungary and therefore asked his international contacts for help to produce them for him based on his designs.
In 1978, Endre Tót went to West Berlin at the invitation of the DAAD and emigrated to Germany. After living in Cologne for more than forty years, he returned to Berlin. The current exhibition at Galerie Mathias Güntner Berlin focuses on the Zero Paintings, the Stamp Editions and the series of Absent Paintings created in the early 1990s.
Endre Tót's works are represented in the most important international collections, including at the Centre Pompidou, The British Museum, Tate Modern, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), San Francisco Museum of Art (SFMoMA), Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, La Bibliothèque nationale de France, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Museum of Art in Łódź, Museum of Contemporary Art (Zagreb), The Kontakt Collection (Vienna), Neue Nationalgalerie, Bundeskunstammlung - Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.