Janos Szirtes: Oxygen. Varfok Galeria, Budapest April 20th 2022

https://www.varfok-galeria.hu/szirtes-janos-oxigen/

Well, I suppose it had to happen eventually but this was not good. I saw only one work that I admired (on the right as you entered, by the title of the show) and, significantly, it was very different from all the others on display – a fiercely, aggressively grimacing face.

Each individual work in the show was in itself distinctive – but each was also very similar to all the others in the exhibition. There seemed to be just one idea (in itself effective) with its use of vivid colour and mix of scratchy abstract lines interspersed with a few, (sometimes more than a few) larger areas of concentrated and contrasting colour or colours. One good idea repeated, I felt.

Richard Wagner und das deutsche Gefuhl; German Historical Museum, Berlin. June 18th 2022

Between Heaven and Hell; The Enigmatic World of Hieronymus Bosch. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. April 10th 2022