Attila Kovács

Works by the painter Attila Kovács (1938–2017) appeal to us for their precision, their balanced measure and proportions, their black-and-white contrasts and their handcrafted perfection. Ever since being discovered by Max Bense, who in 1970 singled out his works as »urban models«, and at the very latest since his participation in the documenta 6 (1977), Attila Kovács is considered as being an analytic artist more closely associated with science than with painting. Whether as a painter he preferred to relate to reality in a figurative or an abstract manner was a question he settled by opting for a synthetic form he termed painting’s third possibility. His pictures are based on logical parameters, upon whose foundation a form develops by following the coordinates of a reference system. In this way, the prerequisites of a structure are visually perceptible – and the sensuousness of the pictures detaches itself from the theoretical foundation: »You do not have to understand Dürer’s doctrine of proportions to be able to find his paintings beautiful.« (Attila Kovács)