NAGYMOLNAR – THE GEOMETRY OF LIGHT – A STUDY

NagyMolnar – The Geometry of Light 

It has become commonplace these days to state that the use of electromagnetic radiation in art is, in terms of aesthetic autonomy, a technique of equal rank to the use of pigments blended on the artist’s palette. The telecommunications devices that form such an inseparable part of our everyday lives utilise modulations of light to present a diversity of visual content, while the creative use of directed light sources is the richest seam of interaction with the built environment, offering almost endless possibilities. Experiments that rely on kinaesthetic sensation also tend to take architecture as their backdrop, whose deconstruction, reorganising stable structures into virtual masses and temporospatial processes, involves deploying the volatile nature of light as the creative tool and the main organising principle underlying the artworks’ modus operandi.

The experiments conducted by the art duo NagyMolnar (Krisztián Nagy and Csaba Molnár) are also motivated by architecture, for their ideas would be almost unimaginable without prior knowledge of the environment-moulding solutions implemented in homes, interiors and communal spaces. While the light objects they create result in only an indirect experience of space, a fruitful dialogue is generated between the intangible nature of space and its real, physically perceptible presence. The issues at the core of their joint works are the questions of space without physicality and physicality without space, the formation of virtual mass, and the use of light to render material visible or, as the case may be, invisible. The essence of the works created by the two engineer-artists lies in the twin acknowledgements that our everyday living spaces can be enriched with the help of light, and that by coming into contact with artworks we can interactively develop and refine our optical senses. 

The emergence of lumino-kinetic art (art using light and motion), made possible by the spread of electricity, dates its history back to the 1910s. It carved out its own territory on the periphery of traditional art, with pioneering roles played by numerous artists of Hungarian origin. (Among the leading members of the first and second generations of lumino-kinetic artists, the arc progresses from Miklós Barna through László Moholy-Nagy and György Kepes to Miklós Schöffer, but this trajectory is continued by contemporary artists in Hungary today, such as Attila Csáji and András Mengyán, who both work with lasers and holograms; Péter Botos, who makes sculptures out of glass; and László Zsolt Bordos, who combines light-painting with the so-called mapping technique.) The light-boxes constructed by Krisztián Nagy and Csaba Molnár using the tools of technology and engineering belong within this century-old genealogy and form part of the tradition of using light as a creative medium. Their works incorporate the reductionist aesthetic of James Turrell, the elementalism of Keith Sonnier, and the consonance of basic units that build on the interplay of colours, as can be found in the light environments of Carlos Cruz-Diez; their sources of inspiration also include artists who explore the uncertainties in our traditional perceptions of space, such as Helga Philipp, with her lyrical depictions of visual paradoxes; Iván Navarro, who combines complex layers of meaning with uses of light that deceive and captivate our vision; and Hans Kotter, whose large installations are physiological examinations of the aesthetics of the medium.

The objects produced by Krisztián Nagy and Csaba Molnár in the Mysterlight series are constructed out of special mirrors and unseen light sources, and generate an immersive, phantasmagorical visual experience. They can be regarded as direct descendants of medieval magic lanterns, conceived in the mystery of light and capturing our attention with their enigmatic mechanisms. Formally, however, these works are strikingly minimalist. Their power derives from the astonishing complexity of the structures elicited using simple basic shapes. First we are struck by the deceptive spatial depth of the radiant, energy-filled compositions that appear in the boxes on the walls, framed like paintings. The images conjure up cosmic associations as they drag our gaze ever deeper inside them, where the light, coming from an indeterminable source, draws formulaic concentric forms, like the ripples of a stone thrown into a well; spatial grids consisting of crystalline sheets piled on top of each other; tunnels of time and space that twist tornado-like around an irrational axis; or black holes envisaged as aberrant energy fields emanating from a spiral of light whose vortex drills down into the depths of the picture. As the visual elements are rotated over each other, shifted apart step by step, and scaled up or down in size, the movements cause a dizzying vertigo effect, whose dynamism stems from the dual nature of the light, which is simultaneously physical, lending depth to the figures, and illusory, only indirectly perceptible. The light not only produces its own environment and gives it its materiality, but also liquefies it at the same time, dematerialising it.

The magical geometry in the works of Krisztián Nagy and Csaba Molnár, the shapes that fill in the compositional space like a kaleidoscope, recalling the forms of distant pulsars, planets and galaxies, may suggest connections with popular culture, with electro-acoustic music, with writings about galactic voyages, and with films where science and fantasy intermingle. The unsettling visuality conveyed by the works poses in the guise of a messenger, whether that message be some kind of physical law or a simple principle of colour theory. The formal repertoire used when designing the compositions comes about in every case as the result of a heuristic creative process. With this in mind, the NagyMolnar duo utilise light both quantitatively and qualitatively – with the tools available, they can produce any colour at all with the desired amplitude and frequency. By multiplying forms reduced to their most essential and by combining the simplest geometric motifs and primary colours, and through permutations of the two, they create a system that is coded in time. I am convinced that the grammar of this virtuoso visual language, rich in ideas and overflowing with ingenious solutions, is provided by its clarity and ease of understanding. We can witness the birth of a virtual world constructed from the building blocks that everybody is familiar with, engendering a compositional space that is built up from the foundations and stripped bare. What we have before us is a unique duality, a fertile dichotomy, as the objects of the Mysterlight series become revelatory due to the disquieting experience of the tension between the determinate and indeterminate character of the spectacle.

When observing the works, it is important to bear in mind that, in a philosophical sense, one of the most fundamental premisses of lumino-kinetic art has always been to move towards the original source of artistic tools of expression. In other words, the main motivation of lumino-kinetic thinking lies in trying to reach the purest, simplest form, devoid of all embellishment and serving as the common denominator of all else. It therefore follows that the boxes created by NagyMolnar – making use of pure white light, which can be broken down into all the colours of the spectrum – can be regarded as a modern interpretation, using modern tools, of the concept of Suprematism formulated by the great Russian avant-garde painter Kazimir Malevich, expressing infinity and the pure, sensory quality of the idea. As is well known, Malevich transcended easel painting by creating the most abstract composition possible, understood as the reciprocal of the imitation of nature: the black-and-white picture on a black-and-white background. Later, by taking Malevich’s homogeneous squares and rotating the basic geometric shapes around their own axes, Victor Vasarely arrived at what he called the “optical” planar-kinetic analysis of the spectacle (more commonly known as the “Op Art” movement). With all this in mind, the Mysterlight series easily fits in with the art historical tradition that is rooted in Constructivism. The works of Krisztián Nagy and Csaba Molnár add a new technological and medial twist to the Malevichian legacy of visual representation; with the addition of light, producing an absolutely pure abstraction of reality, they allude indirectly to the concept of Suprematism. At the same time, they apologetically follow Vasarely’s recognition that the conquest of the fourth dimension can also be launched from the second dimension! Vasarely represents the defining forebear of NagyMolnar’s art, and it is also from him, or in a broader sense from the Bauhaus, that the idea comes that works of art should be endowed with a participatory character that provides function, reflected in the notion that the beholder of the work can also be involved in the creative process. As interpreted by Krisztián Nagy and Csaba Molnár, the viewer/beholder should be given the chance to decide on certain attributes of the composition (for example, by using a remote control to adjust pre-defined parameters such as the colour scheme or the intensity of the lights), thereby influencing the “optical climate” of the picture. The works become a part of the democratic process of producing and consuming images without relinquishing their uniqueness or suffering any dent in their autonomy. This is a timely realisation, which cannot in any sense be called utopian today. What is impressive in the activity of the creative duo NagyMolnar is the fact that, in a self-taught way, following years of experimentation, they arrived at a form of aesthetic expression that is filled with art historical allusions, hidden stylistic references, and the connotations expressible in the language of the medium they use, which – for want of a more precise terminology – can be called “geo-optical light sculpture”, an art form that could potentially serve as the starting point for a completely new, trendsetting movement.

Márton Orosz, PhD

Director of the Vasarely Museum of the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest