The exhibition features works by Hungarian, Finnish, Austrian, Romania and Dutch light artists, many of whom were present at the opening of the show. Though Hungary has produced such great light artists as László Moholy-Nagy and György Kepes, just a few artists have worked with light to such a degree of success since the fall of communism. Among them are Attila Csáji, András Mengyán, László Paizs and István Orosz, who set up the Kepes Society and established light art as an independent genre, even organising six symposiums on the subject between 1992 and 2007.
The physicist Norbert Kroó, speaking at the opening of the exhibition, likened light art to a toy for adults.
The art form was first materialised as photographic film, then later as motion pictures, and now we are seeing completely new techniques, such as the holograph or even nanotechnology.
A work by András Mengyán
The A22 Gallery has made it its mission to popularise light art by organising regular group - and from next year solo - exhibitions, involving artists from all over the world.
In addition to the UV-pictures of Mengyán and Csáji's holograms, the exhibition presents a multo-layered work by the young artist Bálint Bolygó, who lives in London but has Hungarian roots, the video work of star Dutch builder Kas Oosterhuis, the German artist Michael Bleyenberg's creations with nanotechnology, the refractive plastics of Esa Laurema from Finland or Waldemar Mattis-Teutsch from Romania, and the light creations of Italy's Carlo Bernardini and Hungary's Éva Bortnyik.
