.	Self-Painting Pictures About Endre Koronczi's new pictures	.
		.	Balázs Faa

Since we’re dealing with pictures, it seems most natural and right to look at them. The first impression is that all of the pictures are made up of several pieces. Evidently, this lends itself to the interpretation that the "whole" cannot be grasped. All human endeavours begin at this point: the division of the whole into parts. Nearly all world concepts and mysticisms, the mysticism of enlightenment, and even logic, order the segments around these two poles. Light against of Urobos, the snake, whose bite maybe illustrates the self-afflicted pain of becoming whole again. Things consist of two halves, coins have two sides.

Some pictures are divided into four, which is the figure that generally serves as a symbol for the world. This figure is present in the gravity perpendicular to the surface, in the line of trees growing perpendicularly to the horizon, the roots mirroring the foliage; in the cross of Christ, the centre of the four directions being the body, in the intersection of coordinate axes used in geometry, whose origin is the fulcrum of the mathematical universe, the point by which Archimedes believes the world can be lifted.

Variations on the division of the whole appear on the pictures darkness, truth against falsity, head against tail, that as a direct heritage from the Pythagorean numerology, the Cabbala, the Rosicrucian tradition, quantum mechanics, or even from Friedkin´s cosmogonical theory based on bits.

All these divisions cut the circle up to pieces, in faithful accordance with the basis and shape of all human world concepts.

The undemonstrative choice of colours, the rich, sensual surface of the canvases, the wide and orderly movements indicate a profoundly concentrated act of creation. As if the artist was standing in front of his easel, painting stubbornly that one moment in which, as a result of the artist’s meditation, the world opens up, or time, compared by Thomas Mann to a bottomless well, opens up, or the hell of Jungian collective unconsciousness opens up. And in order not to get lost in it, he obliges it to take on the shape, the form, which is man’s only weapon against threatening chaos.

But something isn’t right with these pictures.

To be able to get to them, one needs to know the way they were created. Ideally, the vision and the information about the pictures produce an effect at the same time. I’m not saying that just by looking at the pictures one could´t understand the method. The painter probably didn’t try to conceal it, and the pictures themselves even seem to be declaring it to some extent. One could say that understanding the method while looking at the pictures is an important factor of the comprehension. Still, I take it upon myself to explain the method of creation used here, because it might support my thoughts. However, I wish to disclaim the role of the "picture interpreter". What I say is that in this case the method and its subject are not in a subordinate or superordinate relation, but are in synthesis.

The painter turned two blank canvases face to face. The paint was put in between. The two canvases were moved against each other on a determined course. This movement arranged the paint on the two canvases pressed together, and after the "painting" finished they joined in one picture. The canvases were not touched by a paintbrush.

The painter circumvented the traditional position of the painter confronting a blank canvas with brush in hand, approaching as close as possible the idea of the picture in his head through the constant interaction of the real and the ideal pictures. I´d say, if I’m allowed to use a metaphor figure, that Endre Koronczi caused a short circuit. He confronted the canvases with each other, with themselves, casting thus on them the role of the paintbrush and, to some extent, his, the painter’s own. It is impossible or, rather, pointless to distinguish between the canvases as the former and the formed. On one hand, they switched places several times during the process, and on the other hand, the two halves finally made up a whole. These are not pictures painted by pictures, but SELF-PAINTING PICTURES. Mark and marker, image and mirror image, original and copy, cause and effect all merge together in a synthesis, which again I can only liken to a short circuit again, that throws off a sparkle just before the short cut, and this last sparkle conjures up a momentary glimpse of indivisible wholeness.

This applies to every piece of art created from the time of the fixed moment of the Impressionists to the beginning of the era of conceptual painting. Although, on second thought, even painting a homogenous grey surface requires the idea of homogenous grey surfaces. When the painter sees that his grey is not even enough, he will raise his hand to cover up the differences.

In the case of these pictures, the ideas of the painter were abstract geometrical assumptions and physical necessities. He can influence the final image through the proportion, size, and movement of each part of the picture. The visual idea falls into the background, maybe into the realm of colours. In other words, the idea is concerned with the method and not with the image.

The painter sets up a system, "feeds in" some "input data" into his "painting machine", and restrict himself to the job of the animator; imperceptibly, he leaves the process of creation. This attitude might be called extreme modesty or utmost provocation.

Those who are familiar with the work of Endre Koronczi, will recognize this ambivalence of attitude, this synthesis of method and subject. I am referring to a series of nearly 600 pieces of etchings, all the products of a similar "picture machine". The series consists of individual pieces, rendered individual by the reproduction process itself. The method here was defined by the geometrical shape of the plates and the fact that the plates could print several times, on the same paper, without rolling on a new coat of ink.

It’s best not to talk about things that cannot be seen here. The catalogue of the present exhibition describes the method and also contains reproductions of a few pieces from the series.

What is of interest to us is that this series aims at the entirety of variations, poor and fine included alike. The ambivalent attitude mentioned before can be felt here, too. The artist does not claim the valuableness of his individual pieces, but, in his own modest/provocative way, wants to state the "whole".

To return to the paintings exhibited here, the meditative-sensitive classification of the pictures was based on such elements at the beginning of this text that have since become dubious.

Can you attribute meaning to signs that could not be proved a such? Are the pictures segmented to symbolise the impossibility to grasp the "whole" in its wholeness or simply to enable the parts to move against each other? Does a circle created by the only possible way two canvases clipped together with their corners could make symbolise wholeness? The painter merely co-operates in the making of his pictures by a relatively simple system, could you call this profound creation? And finally: are these pictures paintings?

Lately, a kind of cautious exploring seems to take place in the art world. A few artists make clandestine peace amidst the wars of constant progression. More exactly, they try to evade the formations called "military positions" or, more recently "lines of force" by certain authors. They are leaving the "glorious path" for the "peaceful path".

Some are taking a stroll between conceptuality and sensibility, sometimes with their hands thrust in their pockets, sometimes getting into paradox situations, like Endre Koronczi, hoping that the observers of his pictures will participate in the strange experience of "squaring the circle".

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