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How can a Nation Survive Cultural Destruction?

Updated: Dec 12, 2020

Deme Felícia | contextus.hu |


How can an artist depict a nation oppressed, defamed, downtrodden by its authority without using human figures? How can a nation survive cultural destruction? Visitors might ask themselves such questions at Baranyai Levente’s exhibition called „Falling into the depths of a slaughterhouse” at FUGA.




Wars in the shadow of power


The newest exhibition by Baranyai Levente focuses on two Syrian cities – Aleppo and Damascus –, and on the recent history of Tibet torn by wars. They might be located far from each other but oppression and constant power struggles are common in their turbulent past.


Lately, Syria is often placed in the spotlight. The migration due to civil war is part of the everyday press. However, the destruction by the war is rarely shown.


The major Syrian cities are almost totally destroyed by the fights and attacks since 2011. The ancient buildings in Damascus and the old city of Aleppo are the victims of the power game, where barmarism triumphed over culture.

The Free Tibet series is centered around the conflict between the autonomy of Tibet and the state of China. This culminates in the story of Seda Larung Wuming which is the largest Buddhist university of the world.


In 2017, seven thousand homes were destroyed by the Chinese government, and thousands of nuns, monks were evicted from the city of Larung Gar.


All this was done by referring to the renovation works of the university building. However, the true reason was to show off power and to gain complete control. The majority of Buddhist intellectuals, and the next generation of scholar monks were educated in that university, therefore it stood in the way of the Chinese government.

The monumental university building in the center of the Free Tibet paintings embodies all that had been taken away from Larung Gar, and all that had been left.


Now the building represents oppression and absolute power enacted by the government of China over the city.


The red and yellow roofs - similarly to the colour of the clothes of Buddhist monks - surround the monumental university building like a nameless cemetary.



Neat slaughterhouse


At first glance we may only see neat streets and squares from above on these huge canvases. These are different cityscapes with one thing in common: a monumental building surrounded by favela-like colourful roofs. The mosque or the university campus is the manifestation of faith and culture, proudly proclaiming the possibility of peace and harmony, and the power of knowledge by towering above the city.

However, these cityscapes look calm only at first glance. As we step closer, the neat streets turn to swirling spots, and the smoke of explosions along with the disturbing chaos appear.


The agitated, massive layering of oil paint almost creates the atmosphere of a railroad layout. The bulky use of paint makes it look three dimensional.


It is an exciting technique considering that Baranyai Levente portrays the destruction from a bird's eye view. Thus, the viewer may feel like a fighter pilot. The contrast between the two-dimensional nature of the theme and the roughness of the surface creates a very peculiar overall impact.

The distraction and anger reflected through the brush strokes derive from the suffering of the people and from the meaningless war generated by the authority. The size of the paintings also underpin the monumentality of the topic.



"The colours are ancient ideas, they exist since the beginning of time"


- this is how Baranyai Levente defines colours that endow his works with further layers of meaning. The so-called "gastro-ideological colour wheel" - reinvented from the 12 point colour wheel - helps us interpret the meaning.


According to Baranyai Levente, colours are equivalent to ideas relating to each other like certain components of the colour wheel.


The three primary colours - red, yellow and blue - that dominate his paintings symbolize predators and omnivores. Man stands in the middle as the top predator. Wars, physical and cultural violence is the result of man's lust for power. The elements of "gastro-ideological colour wheel" are present ever since the existence of the world, similarly to wars on Earth.



A little Hungarian reality


In addition to the Tibetan and Syrian series, there is a painting related to Hungary holding a mirror on the entire exhibition.


The artwork called National Toilet illustrates the National Gallery in Budapest from above. While the rest of the paintings depict the conventional type of destruction by wars, this refers to a different type of destruction.


Football stadiums - just like bomb impacts - are located around the gallery building. This is not about civil war or religious terrorism but another type of power abuse which might not be just a distant deterrent vision. This artwork itself is a firm criticism of the government, intensified by all those paintings about bombed-out cities.


Officially there is peace in Hungary since the change of the political system. However, politics require an enemy and trumped-up fights in order to maintain power.


On the other hand, our society is seriously affected by the crimes against culture. And this - compared to the images of Tibetan and Syrian war zones - is truly gruesome.



The silence of war


Baranyai Levente depicts war vividly without being pretentious. There is no blood, no dead bodies, not even a human figure. The silence diffusing from his paintings is far more frightening and tells a lot more than anything. The dreariness and the lack of the tracks of human life have a thrilling effect along with the shadow of the reddish-brown bomb cloud in the background. It is an intriguing way of depicting the desire for peace in Hungary, where there is peace but no harmony. Where the fate of people fleeing from war is part of the everyday press, but there is no dialogue about the war itself.

Through his work, Baranyai Levente tries to save what is left from our fleeting world on the verge of reality and abstraction. As the slaughterhouse of power makes no difference between geographical conditions or religious beliefs.


2019-04-04


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