Attila Csáji
painter, light artist, holographer
Born
in Szepsi, formerly Hungary, now Slovakia. In 1948, his family was
resettled in Hungary. As a child, he spent a year in
Utrecht-Driebergen, Holland, where he started to study drawing.
In the 1960s and 1970s he was the chief organiser of the activities of
Hungarian avant-garde art, including the monumentuous "Szürenon"
exhibition, exhibition "R", series of exhibitions in Poland of
underground Hungarian avant-garde art, the Balatonboglár "Chapel
Exhibitions", etc. B.W.A. Scholarship (Association of Polish Artists),
1970, 1971; Károlyi Scholarship, Vence, France, 1975. From 1967 onwards
his work focused on light-interpreted paintings, which included the
series "Messages" and "Sign-Matrices". These were supplemented, from
1970 onwards, by the series of paintings called "Blacks".
In the middle of the 1970s he started to explore the visual and
pictorial potentials of coherent laser light with physicist Dr. Norbert
Kroó (Central Research Institute for Physics, Budapest), patent in
1980. Exhibitions in the Hungarian National Gallery included "Plastic
Pictures" (1977), "New Experiences of Vision and Space" (1980) and
"Holograms" (1983). In 1983, he made a laser animation film in the
Pannonia Film
Studio, Budapest, which was shown in various cities and countries
including the Osnabrück Film Festival and M.I.T., Cambridge, MA. From
the beginning of 1980s he had a series of laser and hologram
presentations in the Bella Center, Copenhagen; Messepalast, Stuttgart;
Messepalast, Vienna; Finlandia Palace, Helsinki; Hungarian Embassy,
Moscow; Union College, Schenectady, New York; CAVS, Cambridge, MA.
Contributions to ELECTRA'83, Museum of Modern Art, Paris; Licht Blicke
("Holography as New Medium"), German Film Museum, Frankfurt am Main.
Soros grant, 1987-88. From 1987 fellow of the Center for Advanced
Visual Studies, M.I.T. 1988-98: Budapest Palace of Art (individual
retrospective exhibition). From 1993 member of the Leonardo
Association (USA). 1992: grant of the Interscience Technology, Los
Angeles, St.Louis, Orlando, etc.
In the early 1990s he takes an active part in the reorganisation of the
institutional framework of art in Hungary. President of the
Hungarian Association of Creative Artists. He reorganises the Szinyei
Society (1992-93, president). President of the Art Board of
The National Cultural Foundation. He organises a series of biennial
Light
Symposiums (held at the Kepes Museum, Eger) that draws participants
internationally. Launches the International Kepes Society, its
president from 2000. Member of the Baltic-area Dimension Group.
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