Chance as Strategy

The international exhibition of the Open Structures Art Society (OSAS) intends to point to the myriad of possibilities in applying chance in the constructive strivings of today’s visual art. The starting point for aleatoric art(s) that clarifies and employs chance – similarly to the scientific thinking of the 20th century – is the realization that chance is an essential part of the artwork. 

In visual art, we can regard the collage series jointly created “according to the laws of chance” by Jean Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp in 1918 as the first accidental-conscious artwork – and let us add here: utilizing chance was one of the most important technique of creating art in Dadaism – which had to wait forty years for the way of thinking it represented to be carried further. Influenced by the oeuvre of the Arps, the French François Morellet completed his first chance-generated series in 1958, of which he writes: I realized that chance can help bring my peacefully slumbering systems back to life. I adored irritation and accidents which caused ‘programmed’ coincidences and which didn’t stem from the subjectivity of my arbitrary artistic decisions. 

The exhibition features a selection of artworks by artists – both international and Hungarian – who recognizes and applies the function of chance: 
Marie-Catherine & Bernard ADDE - Levente BÁLVÁNYOS - Alpár BUJDOSÓ - Waltraut COOPER - Attila CSÖRGŐ - Gyula FELEDY - István HARASZTŸ - Ewerdt HILGEMANN - Béla JULESZ - György KEPES - Ilona KOVÁCS & Ákos FEHÉR - Imre LEPSÉNYI - Stéphane MALLARMÉ / Tibor PAPP - Kenneth MARTIN - András MENGYÁN - Manfred MOHR - Vera MOLNAR - François MORELLET - István NÁDLER - László OTTÓ - Géza PERNECZKY - Zbigniew RYBCZYŃSKI - Axel ROHLFS - Diet SAYLER - Esther STOCKER - Zdeńek SÝKORA - Éva T.BORTNYIK & Csaba TUBÁK - Ryszard WINIARSKI - András WOLSKY - Edward ZAJEC 

A larger ensemble of drawings, projects and video works by Academy Award-winning Polish film director, visual artist and experimental animation filmmaker Zbigniew RYBCZYŃSKI constitutes an organic part of the show. The latter also comprises part of the State of Images event series organized by the C³ Center for Culture & Communication Foundation, and had also previously been presented in the exhibition halls of the Akademie der Künste Berlin and the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe. 

Supporters and partners : NKA (National Cultural Fund of Hungary); Polish Cultural Institute Budapest, Hungarian University of Fine Arts, WRO Art Center Wrocław, Akademie der Künste Berlin, ZKM│Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe; Samsung Hungary