Ádám Ulbert
The Necessity of Translation May Be the Necessity for Reformulation, 2022–2024
Organic Intelligence (Solarpunk Biotechnology Meets Raoul Francé), 2023
wood, aluminum, paper mache, coconut, silk screen print on t-shirt, 200 x 100 x 50 cm
Alembic Vessel for the Transformulations of R.F., 2023
glass, spirulina, bronze, 30 x 40 x 40 cm
Pattern Recognition / Algae TV, 2022
video, 1 min, TV, bronze, 52 x 55 x 63 cm
unnamed no. 33 (life on an alien planet), 2023
oil on canvas, 160 x 140 cm
Heliocentric Trajectory, 2023
neon, epoxy, 46 x 50 x 15 cm
courtesy of the artist and Longtermhandstand Budapest
The starting point for this ensemble of artworks is a contemporary reinterpretation of early 20th century ecological thinkers and ecologically sensitive artists. The work of microbiologist-discoverer-writer Raoul Francé has assumed particular importance in this process. Francé is a prominent figure in the biocentric thinking that emerged in the first half of the 20th century and is still actively discussed today. The basic premise of biocentrism is that, since life’s origin is first and foremost biological, it must be the complex worldview that centres the biological conception of existence in philosophy, or in the logic of philosophy, that precedes any intellectual consciousness. Francéan philosophy tries to construct this biocentric cognition. Life is considered an active effect and dynamic mechanism that moves and permeates everything. Since plasmatic and unicellular existence is the basis of this process, he argues that biology is the discipline with which the processes of life and spirit can best be approached and described. Bios carries within itself – already in its initial stage of existence – the “knowledge” with which it continues to build and expand incessantly. Based on this premise, we can see all material and spiritual things as something that forever carries within itself its own biomorphic origins and interfaces.
unnamed no. 33 (life on an alien planet), 2023, oil on canvas, 160 x 140 cm, courtesy of the artist and Longtermhandstand Budapest, photo: Áron Weber
Ádám Ulbert (b. 1984, Budapest) is currently a fourth-year doctoral student at the Doctoral School of the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. His research focuses on the connections between fine art, ecology, and science-fiction. He obtained his Master of Fine Arts degree at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam in 2014. He then attended a two-year postgraduate residency program at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in 2016–17. He has attended shorter and longer programs in the United States (TAAK Summer School / Chinati Foundation Marfa, Texas), South Korea and Japan (Asian Culture Center – Rjksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Dialogue and Exchange Programme, Gwangju), and Berlin (Collegium Hungaricum). In 2021, he was one of the winners of the Esterházy Art Award and in 2018 he won the Mondriaan Fonds Established Artist scholarship. His solo presentations include shows at the Longtermhandstand, Budapest, Esterházy Palace, Eisenstadt, Karlin Studios, Prague, Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam. He has taken part in several group exhibition: < rotor > association for contemporary art, Graz (2023), tranzit.sk, Bratislava (2023), UGM Studio (2022), OFF-Biennále Budapest (2021), Villa Du Parc Contemporary Art Center, Annemasse, France (2019), Abstract Hungary at KM–Graz (2017).
