Vera Molnar (Vintage Galéria, Budapest, 2018)

Notes

Exhibition catalogue, Vintage Galéria, Budapest, 2018, bilingual English/Hungarian (51 pages). ISBN 978-963-9800-18-2. Text: Barbara Nierhoff (Hungarian translation Adamik Lajos; English editing Rudnay Zsófia). Design: Szmolka Zoltán. Reproductions: Bozsó András. Printed by Pauker Nyomda. Images © Vera Molnar. The gallery had already given her a solo show in 2015. Barbara Nierhoff's essay, "Vera Molnar and the Computer: From the Machine Imaginaire to the 'Machine Réelle'", is based on her conversations with the artist (the dated ones are from March 2006). It reads as if written for Molnár's 2006 Kunsthalle Bremen exhibition "Monotonie, symétrie, surprise": a footnote says certain photographs "are exhibited in Bremen for the first time". It's reprinted here. The essay places Molnár against the German founders of computer art: Nees's February 1965 show in Stuttgart, organised by Max Bense, and Nake, Franke and the American A. Michael Noll, all scientists rather than trained artists. A footnote adds Otto Beckmann. She came to the computer in 1968 as one of the first academy-trained artists to do so, inspired by Bense's generative aesthetics. Her origins: - At about ten she drew the view across Lake Balaton every evening in the same five colours, then grew dissatisfied and began trying neighbouring colours: her first systematic series. - She studied painting and art history at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts and has worked abstractly since 1946. She met François Morellet in 1957, showed with her husband François Molnar as an artist couple in Max Bill's Zurich "Konkrete Kunst" (1960), and co-founded CRAV/GRAV. The method: - From 1959 she worked as a "machine imaginaire": "I imagined I had a computer", carrying out small self-contained series by hand without skipping any combination. Examples are Interruption/Continuation (1961), 10 Fluorescent Squares Cut Into Two Pieces (1966) and À la recherche de Paul Klee. - In 1968 she moved to the "machine réelle" at the Bull research lab in Paris, plotting her first two graphics on a Benson plotter. In 1969 she worked directly on screens at the University of Paris computing centre. - She learned Fortran and Basic, gave up on C, and later handed programming to others. Erwin Steller has written her programs since 1996. - Paul Klee's Variations ("There, I found everything I have been looking for") and his idea that "art is a fault in the system" are the key reference points. The essay's central theme is order and disorder: - Arp's chance collages and Morellet's telephone-directory triangles, compared with Molnár's "guided" chance: "I use chance, not the other way around – hopefully." - 144 Trapèzes (1974), Hypertransformations (1975/76) and Structures de quadrilatères (1986). - One Percent Disorder (1980): 5,000 concentric squares over 20 sheets with 50 left out at random. She destroyed the hand-drawn version as "much more boring". - The Hommage à Dürer cycle, from 1948 on, built from the magic square in Melencolia I. In 1990 it became an installation at the Stiftung für Konkrete Kunst, Reutlingen, with black thread on steel pins joining 20 random versions. - The artist's books Out of Square (1994) and Tango (1996), printed on vellum-like paper so earlier and later shapes show through. - Hand and machine together: Transformation en bleu (1983), and Lettres de ma mère (from 1984), which pairs plotter lines with her mother's handwriting, which leaned further right across each page. Plates: "Works 1968–79", 71 numbered images, all ink on paper: - Interruptions 1–5, 1968 (33 × 35 cm). - Transformation of 10 × 10 Squares, 16 sheets, 1975. These are the cover and back cover; the size is printed "888x36 cm", almost certainly a typo. - Transition Between Order and Chaos 1–4, 1975 (110 or 133 × 77.5 cm). - Transformations 1–21, 1976 (55 × 30 cm). - Tablottin 327, 1979 (28 × 41.5 cm): 19 sheets shown in pairs, then six more. Back matter: a biography (1924 Budapest; GRAV 1960; Art et Informatique group 1967; "Molnart" software with her husband 1976; first solo show "Transformations", Polytechnic of Central London 1976; ARTA at the Centre Pompidou 1979; first artist's book 1% de désordre, 1980; the first d.velop digital art award [ddaa] from DAM, 2005). Also selected solo and group exhibitions from 1960 to 2017 (to MoMA's "Thinking Machines") and public collections. The biography is in the present tense ("lives and works in Paris"); Molnár died in December 2023. Pull quotes: "I imagined I had a computer. I created a program and then, step by step, I realized simple, limited series which were self-contained, and thus did not skip any shape combinations." "In my work there are no elements of a symbolic metaphoric mystic kind there is no message no message at all." "I use chance, not the other way around – hopefully." "I live with a pencil but I do not live with a computer." The computer is a "very good assistant but it is a little bit stupid, a lot has to be explained to it". Noted: the English text garbles one sentence ("Like the American Michael Noll Nake, Nees and Franke were not trained artists") and spells the plotter "Benson-Plotter". In this collection, the 1996 book Tango (PION.2016.011) and Hypertransformation (PION.2018.004/005) relate directly to works discussed here. Provenance: born-digital PDF from Vintage Galéria's website (InDesign, created November 2017), downloaded on 30 October 2026; found through a link on gorillasun.de. © Barbara Nierhoff (text), Vera Molnar (images). File md5 a0f7221d72d7445f70b5bd3dd482edbf.