Improving Hungarian-American relations is a national strategic and contemporary art priority!

February 1 – 29, 2024, CEU Open Gallery, Budapest

We live in intense, serious, wartime times. Tension and opposition are increasing almost all over the world, in which new geopolitical events call for a reinterpretation of our desire for freedom and our commitment to peace, as well as quick and effective responses. It’s as if we’re moving more and more towards the fact that only an inevitable duel can end any conflict, only to be followed by another, and then another, and another, until finally all opposing sides fall, while we want to live, enjoy freedom, art , the peace.

drMáriás’s paintings feature famous characters from Hungarian and American politics, public life and art in reinterpreted versions of iconic paintings. Politicians are sometimes given a dramatic role as cowboys or boxers, other times artists, researchers, and celebrities make peace. It is as if we are seeing the tense and exciting scenes of a large-scale movie, where different identities, worldviews and interests turn their characters against each other to make dialogue between them impossible.

drMáriás’s exhibition aims to change and resolve this situation. To show through contemporary fine art our connections, cultural and historical intertwinings, on which our mutual respect and acceptance is based, and which makes dialogue possible, even necessary.

drMáriás’s pictures with their multi-layered range of meanings make their viewers think and take them on an entertaining journey of discovery. It activates our personal and collective memory and shows historical and artistic parallels. He portrays his characters by mixing romance with absurdity, drama with irony, tragedy with comedy, so that in the end everyone wins and becomes a hero in their own way, just like in a fairy tale.

Take a look around the exhibition that evokes the dramatic atmosphere of the duels of the old western films, which tries to disarm you with its playfulness, references, humor and love.