Artist Data

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Location

  • Born 1952 in Budapest, Hungary

  • Lives and works in Balatonszemes, Hungary

Education

  • 1972 - 1976
    Hungarian University of Applied Arts, Budapest, Hungary
    M. F. A. in Graphic Design (Sándor Ernyei, János Kass)

Awards and Grants

  • 2001
    Daytime Emmy nomination as Design Producer
    The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, New York, United States

  • 2000
    Pulcinella Award for Design
    Cartoons on the Bay, Positano, Italy

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Solo Exhibitions

2007

  • Ink paintings, Lamy Avery Gallery International, Claremont, United States.

1996

  • Public Punishment, Halfadozen Rose Gallery, Venice, Los Angeles, United States.

  • Weapons and Pranic Generators, Halfadozen Rose Gallery, Venice, Los Angeles, United States.

1991

  • 3, Böröcz, Kosbor, Nosek, PS 122 Gallery, New York, United States.

1980

  • Identification Panopticon, Gallery of Young Artists, Budapest, Hungary.

Group Exhibitions

2016

  • Private Nationalism Project, Apartman Project Gallery, Berlin, Germany.

2015

  • Private Nationalism Project, Knockdown Center, Queens, New York, United States.

  • Private Nationalism Project, Municipal Gallery, Budapest, Hungary.

  • Bicycle Art, Vertes Agoraja Contemporary, Tatabánya, Hungary.

2010

  • Erotica, Gallery Godo, Glendale, United States.

2009

  • Monsters, Le Garage L, Forcalquier, France.

1997

  • Landscapes, Halfadozen Rose Gallery, Venice, Los Angeles, United States.

1995

  • Lamy Avery collection, Stage Left Gallery, Glendale, United States.

1993

  • Variations on Pop Art, Ernst Museum, Budapest, Hungary.

  • Gate 12, Hungarian Consulate, New York, United States.

1989

  • Thesis, Merce Cunningham Dance Studio, New York, United States.

  • Magical Pictures, Lajos Utca Gallery, Budapest, Hungary.

1985

  • Immigrant Artists in New York, Galleria En El Bohio, New York, United States.

1984

  • Inauguration Ball, Danceteria , New York, United States.

  • cca515253kb, Pecs Gallery, Pecs, Hungary.

Performances

1996 Three Sons of Viracocha at Half a Dozen Rose Gallery, Venice, California

1995 Trilogy with Wahorn at Half a Dozen Rose Gallery, Venice, California

1989 Public Punishment, ABRA Loft, Brooklyn, New York

1987 Mercury, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York

1984 Worker, Danceteria, New York, New York

1979 I Ching, Müvész Kávéház, Budapest

Video Work Shown

1989 Museum of the Moving Image, New York,New York

1988 Infermental 8 Video Art Collection, Tokyo, Japan

1984 Infermental 3 Video Art Collection, Filmfestspiele, Berlin Arsenal 2, Germany

Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

Western Front Video and Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

Videonale, Bonn, Germany

Manifestation du Video Internationale,

Montbeliard, France

Frankfurter Buchmesse, Frankfurt, Germany

Sphinxx Project, Cologne, Germany

An excerpt from the article published in “Art in America" by Tobey Crockett

Laslo Nosek, a Hungarian-born artist, can be best understood as a metaphysician. With the intriguingly titled exhibition "Weapons and Pranic Generators," Nosek created a new category of ritual object which he presented among a powerful collection of boxed sculptures, painted scrolls, costumes and other relics from a performance. The "pranic generators" are devices for the amplification of spiritual energies. While the artist as shaman is not a new metaphor for the practice of art, Nosek undertakes his role as intercessor with a palpable conviction, impressive craftsmanship and a lack of pretension that is refreshing and persuasive.

Like Beuys, Nosek is interested in evocative materials. While accepting influences from many sources, he has a special ability to transform the ordinary fabric of life and the passivity of art viewing into a transcendental experience.

Press release for solo show “Weapons and Pranic Generators” at half a dozen rose gallery, by Shana Nys Dambrot, art critic

Though the work for this show is painting, drawing, and sculpture, the title conveys the more nebulous and ritual function of many of the pieces. The symbols portrayed through the techniques the artist employs are born from a commingling of ancient philosophy and modern conventions of representation, tempered by the immediacy of the experienced moment. Art is a form of meditation for Nosek, a revelatory process to which the finished pieces bear witness. The works have dual values in this way: they are simultaneously the focus of the meditation and the vehicle for it. Many of the pieces in the exhibition are sequential, documenting a spiritual journey informed by the outside world, like a tapestry of thought processes reflecting the past and inflecting the future.

Nosek has been called a teacher but feels more like student--not only of life itself, but more specifically, of humanity's myriad interpretations and representations of life. Immersing himself in the study of Western and Eastern modes of cultural representation, Nosek resurrects the ancient arts of describing reality. Symbolical lexicons developed in each cultural episode reflect that society's attempts to reconcile belief, expectation and experience. In this view, science is a pervasive but spiritually bankrupt attempt at explaining the complex relationship between faith, religious and social doctrine, law and so-called accidents or coincidences.

The ancient mystical science of Alchemy is employed in the literal creation of many of his ritual objects and it becomes an important metaphor of physical transformation for the spiritual journey undertaken in the service of art. Nosek also uses numerological elements in his pieces, referring to the specific date the piece was made and thus implicating the astrological confluences of the moment of creation, lending each moment its distinct character and relevance for the individual. This practice bespeaks a desire to be always fully linked to or firmly rooted in the real experience of life.

In addition, the treatment of Cabalistic theory holds a dual importance in his work, incorporating both the beautiful image of organic growth, the tree of life, and the startling relationship to contemporary scientific "discovery". The confluence of knowledge between seemingly disparate fields of inquiry demonstrates the ultimate and literal interconnectedness of all things. Characters from the Hebrew alphabet which appear in Nosek's work reflect this mode of philosophical investigation, providing one more set of referents to inform the work. Jewish mysticism's struggle with the millennium and its emphasis on "reading the signs" when searching for insight into humanity's identity and future, strike particularly compelling chords in these last days of this millennium. The meditative stillness of Buddhism , with its emphasis on the searching for answers within, is another model for inquiry which informs Nosek's approach. Buddhism bespeaks a reliance on the capacity for man to comprehend his own destiny, the essential link between the eclectic grouping of symbols and significances from across the globe and throughout history. What all these elements ultimately share is what Nosek calls an unquenchable need to describe reality.