Happy Tree Friends, but make it art.
In his exhibition "Faces Instead Of Names", Szabolcs Bozó (Millennial, Hungarian) paints floppy cartoon characters that are everything but adorable.
“Mom, can you come pick me up?”
Picture what it was like being a child in an amusement park. You had too many greasy fries and way too many rounds on the carousel. And, suddenly, as your dizzy vision tries to find balance and you try to not throw up, you look around, it’s night, and you’re the only person left at the park. And now, in the darkness of the abandoned park, the drawn cartoon figures that initially welcomed you smile with black fangs and greedily stare into your soul. Welcome to Five Nights at Freddy’s, or, the paintings of Szabolcs Bozó.
Szabolcs’s canvases look like they have been through A LOT. Not only because they host the gore orgies of these horror-cuties. The thick layers of paint look gooey on some paintings, frozen hard on others. Then, a violent splash. In Night Swim, it’s just a silly little guy plunging into the water and having fun. But in Fountain Escape, the red is definitely a splurge of blood, a throat cut by the grinning yellow bear with black gloves and the beheaded staring back in disbelief at its offender. In between the chaos Szabolcs leaves parts of the canvas exposed and… wait a second… is that a mug ring? And are those shoe traces?? What happens in Szabolcs’s atelier? Is he just walking all across the paintings while drinking coffee? What if it’s for the artist’s careless attitude that the cute little fluffs finally showed their teeth?
The Horror of Cuteness
Some figures come from Hungarian cartoons that Szabolcs grew up watching in the 90s. Others seem to be tourist toys you can buy in every city along with colorful magic sand mimicked in the paintings. But there is no comfort in these nostalgic figures and materials. There is nothing but murder behind those huge dilated pupils and evil grins. Szabolcs glues pieces of canvas on some faces as if those were masks, like in Tugboat Pilots on the Danube. The owl looks concerned and stares into the corner, it has not yet become a monster like the rest. Cuteness is a mask worn by what we should be afraid of. In Hide and Seek, the horrified green dog stares back, shitting itself with red paint: We too, should be scared.
Szabolcs continues a tradition of using cuteness in disquieting ways. Japanese artist Yoshimoto Nara’s (b. 1959) cartoonish kids look cute for a split second before revealing their sinister gaze and devilish smirk. Nara’s paintings critique a Japanese society that rebranded itself, masking its history of imperialism and violence behind a culture of cuteness and kawaii. Szabolcs’s cuteness works in a similar way.
The supposedly comforting cuteness of media and entertainment might hide something horrendous in plain sight, what might it be? In any way, these little freaks make sure that no one ever finds out, crawling out of the paintings like Samara in The Ring (2002), dragging Szabolcs across the canvas where the painted traces of hands and feet are the only clue to the crime scene.
You too can timber your shivers at Szabolcs Bozó: Faces Instead Of Names inside Palazzo Cavanis until September 24, 2023.
Palazzo Cavanis
Fondamenta Zattere Ai Gesuati, 920
30123 Venezia VE, Italy
Open from Wednesday until Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm
Free entry
info@palazzocavanis.com
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See you soon!
Jennifer
The Gen Z Art Critic