Artist: Vladimír Houdek
Exhibition title: Harmonia Macrocosmica
Venue: acb Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
Date: September 20 – October 25, 2022
Photography: ©Dávid Tóth, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and acb Gallery, Budapest
acb Gallery hosts Vladimír Houdek’s (b. 1984) first solo exhibition in Hungary. However, the Czech painter is not unfamiliar to Hungarian art connoisseurs, as he has previously participated in group exhibitions at venues such as the Trafó Gallery and the Ludwig Museum. For more than a decade, Houdek has been consistently building his uniquely abstract painting universe, which displays both expressive and geometric features. His geometric op-art is as sensually stimulating as his wild brushstrokes and surface deconstructions. Moreover, Houdek’s motifs blend elements of both the past and the future, though his focus is always on utopias. His multi-layered geometric cosmological symbols are inspired by late-Renaissance and Baroque maps, the abstraction of early 20th-century movements, and the brutalist architecture of the Eastern European region.
Harmonia Macrocosmica, the title of the exhibition is also an important point of reference for the artist, as Johannes Janssonius published the star atlas of Andreas Cellarius for the first time in 1660, which is considered as a masterpiece of dutch cartography. This book contained cosmograms of Ptolemy, Copernicus and the danish Tycho Brahe. Houdek’s exhibition in acb signals his return to the roots of his abstract painting, which is defined by the perfection of the cultural historical symbol of the circle, as such and the sharp dynamics of geometry. The depth of the pictorial space of the Czech painter also refers to the subtle and precise character of graphical techniques and to the robust visual power of brutalist architecture deeply enrouted in the identity of the Central-Eastern European region.
Obviously the common denominator of Houdek’s new paintings exhibited at acb is the yellow color, with its astonishingly subtle tonal variations paying homage to Van Gogh’s sunflower still lifes.
Vladimír Houdek graduated in 2013 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, in the painting class of Vladimír Skrepl. In 2012, he was awarded the Jindřich Chalupecký Prize, still the most prestigious recognition given to young Czech artists. The undivided recognition of his art is shown by the fact that since then, no other young painter in the Czech Republic has won this prize. His works can be found in the newly reorganized permanent exhibition of the National Gallery in Prague, as well as in prestigious private collections such as the Telekom Collection, Kunsthalle Praha, and the Pudil Family Collection. He has also exhibited at prestigious institutions such as the Ludwig Forum in Aachen and MNAC in Bucharest and has had solo exhibitions at the House of Arts in Brno and Plato in Ostrava
