… The sensuality of his works, the apparent contradiction of visual and verbal commonplaces, the lyrical syntax of the found pictures and text fragments, the maze of concepts difficult to describe and of hidden allusions, the symbiosis of the actual words and images reduced practically to signs lead us into an intimate universe where the conceptual references or interpretative attempts rendered to visual sights all point to the absurdity of the external world. However, Csontó discovered a few years ago – while as an artist he attempted to interpret the visible and perceptible environment on a conceptual level – that it is impossible to avoid the referential contradictions of visual and verbal communication, which influence the processes of perception and thinking, although in an unclear way. From this point, the recognition is only a step away that the questions concerning the meaning of existence or the attempts to interpret the world are rather problems of communication and not of philosophy.
In spite of the appearance, Csontó no longer strives to interpret the external world by all means, instead, he approaches the problem from the other side, and with the help of visual and verbal signs, abstract concepts or concepts lifted from their environment he models and interprets his own thinking, and as a result himself and his relationship to the world. The elements that make up his work also allude to variety, multiple meanings or the accidental nature of existence. However, his works created with different strategies and technologies draw an increasingly precise outline of the personality of a determined artist, who relates to the external world with the amount of ambivalence indispensable for survival, honestly pointing out the communication traps of the various interpretations – and then elegantly avoiding them.
However, Csontó does not entrust his pictures to the accidental medium of the actual context shaping the meaning, since with a single word, concept, sentence fragment he creates a very strong, let’s say, internal context for his works, thus lifting and isolating them from their environment. We could also say that this peculiar Csontó-syntax is autonomous to such extent that it is difficult to approach, since the simultaneous and peer presentation of words and visual signs does not only create didactic conceptual parallels or contradictions, but also communicates with the spectator on a sentimental, lyrical or moral level…
… At the same time, the encounters of visual and verbal concepts precisely point out the uncertainties and the defenselessness of the narratives of art: the relationship of the conceptual levels of the concrete and the general, their parallels or contradictions, but most of all the fact that they are embedded in each other; that is, the fundamental difficulty, the practical impossibility of the conceptual interpretation of the world. Because as we can read it on the wall at Csontó’s exhibition “One-two” at the Vintage Gallery: “To get to two from one is the desire of everyone, we all want to see behind things, just as we want to be certain of the truth of everything we consider important. But if we lose sight of our aim even for a second, or our attention falters, we have lost our right to certainty. Beware, it’s a trick!”
Antal Jokesz
