An impressive retrospective of the Hungarian modernist artist in suitably stunning surrounds
Lili Ország (1926-1978) was a highly intellectual modernist painter, whose primary interests were religion, faith and spiritual revelation. It's fitting then that Wanderings / Bolyongások takes place in a deconsecrated Baroque church that's part of the Kiscelli Museum in Budapest; fulfilling a lifelong dream that the Hungarian artist had to exhibit her paintings in such a place. "I just want to have at the temple walls," she wrote in a letter to friends in 1960, "you couldn’t get me away from it until I’ve painted the whole thing."
Wanderings/Bolyongások at BTM Kiscelli Museum – Fővárosi Képtár, Budapest © Attila Szebellédi
Ország’s literal wanderings would have a profound impact on her art, beginning in 1956 with trips to Bulgaria and Russia, where she first saw the Eastern Orthodox icons that so inspired her. A visit to the old Jewish cemetery in Prague became a bridge back to her Jewish origins, to a time unmarked by the trauma of the Holocaust, and travels to Israel and Italy a few years later would take her even further back in time, leading to her final era of Labyrinth paintings.
The densely layered tombstones Ország saw in the Prague cemetery were like a physical manifestation of the four dimensions: height, width, depth and time. This density would become increasingly mirrored in her canvases, starting with her Townscape paintings (1960-65), which culminated in a major work from 1963, Requiem on Seven Panels in Remembrance of Dead People and Cities. She described Requiem with a characteristic clarity: “I wanted to commemorate, primarily my own family who died in the Shoah. I have been weighed down by this for years and took it as a moral imperative to make them.”
(L-R) Icarus’ Remains, 1977, and Requiem on Seven Panels in Remembrance of Dead People and Cities – Panel VII Requiem, 1963, by Lili Ország © BTM Kiscelli Museum – Fővárosi Képtár, Budapest
Ország’s fictitious ancient cities led to her Inscribed Paintings, for which she created fragments and shards of Hebrew, Persian, Coptic and Greek letters. Abstract prayers in paint that she shaped by scratching and digging into the impasto stone-like surfaces that carried over from Townscapes. Her masterpiece triptych, De Profundis (a reference to Psalm 130, which begins with the words “out of the depths I cried”), hangs in the altar space. These vertically dancing, heaven bound letters, are a fiery supplication, animated by a spirit in search of a time when we all lived closer to Ein Sof – the infinite God.
From 1969 until her death from pneumonia in 1978 Ország devoted herself to painting labyrinths, so rich in archetypal symbolism, both secular and religious, universal and psychological. Her compositions remained densely structured, only now they gave way to a quieter meditation and the inherent possibilities the labyrinth symbolises. Doorways, arches, mirrors, ovals and circles welcome the viewer, inviting pause and reflection. “I feel that my life, everyone’s life, resembles the passages of a labyrinth that we must walk down,” stated Ország in a 2016 exhibition catalogue, “always coming up against walls, gates – having to change direction, losing our way and continuing on towards deep lying-secrets.”
De Profundis by Lili Ország, 1967 © BTM Kiscelli Museum – Fővárosi Képtár, Budapest
The centrepiece of Wanderings/Bolyongások is a wall of 31 interconnected labyrinth paintings. Set against the monumental 18th-century stone walls of the former church, these images blaze with breathtaking intensity and majesty. The exhibition not only honours Ország’s singular spiritual vision, it reminds us that faith is an eternal and enduring human need.
By Nicole Waldner
Header image: section of Blue Painting II/ Time Has Stopped by Lili Ország, 1977 © BTM Kiscelli Museum – Fővárosi Képtár, Budapest
Lili Ország: Wanderings/Bolyongások runs until Sunday 6 April. Kiscelli Museum, 1037 Budapest, Kiscelli utca 108. fovarosikeptar.hu