László Lakner

In 1998, he received the Kossuth Prize, the most prestigious Hungarian State Prize for his artistic work. In 2000, his self-portrait was included in the collection of the Uffizi Gallery / Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.

From the mid-1990s, Lakner's interest returned to photography, which he was able to use conceptually. For example, in Paris he walked around in circles at the fictitious place where the poet Paul Celan committed suicide. Later, he created large-format photo sequences of these places (see exhibition 1999, Galerie Nothelfer, Berlin). In addition, representational images were also created with a new examination of the classical art of painting (see Berenice according to Edgar Allan Poe, 2004 – 2010).

In the same year he received the German Critics' Prize and worked during 1981-1982 with a scholarship from the Berlin Senate in New York at MOMA P.S.1 art studio and gallery, at the same time as the Essen sculptor Carl Emanuel Wolff.

Lakner's guest stay 1981-1982 in New York at MoMA PS1 studio and gallery was significant. Here Lakner experienced the illness and death of a good friend. During this time, he became also aware of graffiti on the walls of houses and in subway shafts. As a result, he painted on large bed sheets, in which individual words or slogans were applied with spray paint. "At that time, the graffiti of the Puerto Rican boys in the streets of New York meant more to me than anything else I saw in museums and galleries." He wanted "Black Milk", the words from Paul Celan's poem Death Fugue, "written big on a wall with a flamethrower." In Isa Pur, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, he cites the oldest Hungarian Funeral Sermon and Prayer written in Latin script: “Behold, we are dust and ashes”. The single letters above the patchy colored ground are created by spray paint, or the paint is scratched away, reinforcing his narrative about life and death.

From the second half of the 1980s the abstract drawings, which could partly be read as rudimentary writing, were etched on thick impasto layers of paint. This technique resulted in pictures with graphic entanglements and lines above the color ground (see work group of splitted images on a box-like deep canvas, 1994). In addition, he also made realistic sculptural works in bronze, which integrated not only the human figure, but also books (see Babel, 1985). On the monument for the Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti, Lakner shows his inner impressions and feelings, created by the poems, on the surface of an imaginary book, which is cast in bronze. The scripture on the tombstone of John Keats, the romantic English poet, ‘Here lies one whose name is writ in water’, inspired Lakner's painting, Keats' grave.

In 1979, Prof. Paul Vogt, the director of the Museum Folkwang, initiated the appointment of László Lakner as a lecturer of painting at the Essen University of Applied Sciences. He also lectured in the Department of Art History at the Free University of Berlin between 1979 and 1980. In 1982 he was finally appointed to the University of Essen (now the University of Duisburg-Essen), where he taught as a professor of experimental design until his retirement in 2001. In these 19 years he worked in Berlin and in his studio in Essen, which he left after 2002 to settle permanently in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. Lakner's professorship for experimental design, later occupied by Jörg Eberhard, required a multidisciplinary expertise, as he supervised students from both the University of Essen and the current Folkwang University of the Arts. His students from this period include, among others, the cabaret artist and photographer Dieter Nuhr, painters Dirk Hupe, Jürgen Paas, Eberhard Ross, photographer and stage designer Johannes Gramm, Günter Sponheuer and Frank Piasta

His attention turned increasingly to historical documents from different centuries, such as letters, dispatches or testaments. He carefully re-represented manuscripts, often written by famous people, showing them in front of a spatial background (see After Schopenhauer / Fragment). This is the continuation of the previously mentioned usage of quotes in new artistic contexts, as well as an innovative exploration of using written text as a subject in paintings. This liberates the viewer to see them from a purely aesthetic perspective; as colour and shape (see Cézanne's Last Letter, 1975, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam). During this time Lakner received a DAAD scholarship in Berlin and migrated to the Federal Republic of Germany (1974).

In his conceptual art Lakner applies various methods of artistic transformation of literature as well as language. A major work in 1970 used a book on aesthetics, written by the Hungarian philosopher George Lukács, who signed it for him. Lakner tied it shut using a piece of string. He then placed the laced book on his studio wall, photographed it and then transformed it into a screen printed image. This work (and its novel method of fabrication) was exhibited in 1972 at the Venice Biennale in the International Pavilion. Lakner continued working with this process by lacing other books, as well as creating photorealistic paintings of such situations.

A similarly photorealistic painting is his naked self-portrait, in which he stands looking at the viewer, wearing only flip-flops and sunglasses. It is regarded as an outstanding political statement on the situation of the artist in the repressive Hungarian regime (see Self-portrait with self-timer, 1970, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. The wish for change inspired many of his works (see Monument of the Revolutions, 1971, Museum Folkwang, Essen and Barricade 1970 / oil on canvas / 150 × 200 cm). He continued to base his photorealistic paintings on photographic documents, often in brown-grey colours, brilliantly painting the change of sharpness in the depth of field from the original photo (Silence, Homage to Joseph Beuys, 1972 Ludwig Museum, Budapest).

Lakner participated in IPARTERV exhibitions in Budapest in 1968 and 1969, which united the leading critical avant-garde artists in Hungary. In doing so, he presented works that subtly contained contemporary and cultural references. Besides object-free representations that were understood to be experimental, he was beginning to paint highly realistic images of found photographic documents in the late 1950s.

Lakner also created images that could be attributed to Pop Art (see Rose, 1968, Mund-Tondo / Mouth-Tondo, 1968, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest). He also experimented with assemblages (see Fugitives, 1966, Hungarian National Gallery and Letter to Barbara, 1964), monochrome paintings, posters and conceptual art; they incorporated sometimes humor. Furthermore, he also painted twin images that juxtaposed the same motif but with different details (see Danae, 1967, Ludwig-Múzeum, Budapest). Here, Lakner examined the limitations and possibilities within his realistic representations, creating a lasting theme that he continued to work with in Germany.

During the Vietnam war (1955-1975) Lakner's interest turned to Asia. Although he did not understand the meaning of calligraphies he saw, he was fascinated by their form and began to paint them. Often, he did not follow the method of calligraphy (painting with ink on rice paper with fast movements), but painted them with oil on canvas with meticulous precision. Not limiting himself with only that technique, he also completely reimagined the Little Red Book "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung" and created a new version of it with the title MAO BIBLE. Instead of being a source of Mao's ideology for the Cultural Revolution, the book is tightly bound with ropes and it is not possible to open it. Some versions of this "Bible" are cast in bronze.

From 1950, László Lakner attended the Art Gymnasium in his native home Budapest. He then studied painting with Professor Aurél Bernáth at the Hungarian Academy for Fine Arts in Budapest from 1954 until his graduation in 1960. In 1959 he created the first of numerous works of art based on found photographs. In 1963, Lakner was approved for his first trip to Western countries. He visited the Federal Republic of Germany and attended the Venice Biennale in Italy in 1964. In 1968 he traveled on a scholarship from the Museum Folkwang, which permitted him a return to the Federal Republic of Germany and a visit to Switzerland In 1972, Lakner worked for two months in the famous guest house of the Museum Folkwang in the city of Essen, where Martin Kippenberger also worked in a studio some years later. In 1974, he was invited to Berlin with a DAAD scholarship for the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program and decided to emigrate to Germany. In 1976 he was awarded the Bremen "Art Prize of Böttcherstraße" and in 1977 he was invited to the documenta VI in Kassel with several works exhibited from the fields of painting, drawing and book objects.

Since his beginnings in the 1950s, Lakner's work has moved with great flexibility and ease among many artistic forms, such as realistic and object-free representations in painting, photography, textual work, film, objects and sculptures. Most of his work was powered by his conceptual way of thinking, and independent of the art form and media used.

László Lakner (Hungarian: [ˈlaːsloː ˈlɒknɛr]; born April 15, 1936 in Budapest) is a Hungarian-German painter, sculptor and conceptual artist. He lives and works in Berlin. László Lakner was born in Budapest in 1936 to an architect of the same name and his wife Sara, born a Sárközy. Lakner is the father of the Hungarian artist Antal Lakner, who was born in 1966. After a long period in the cities Essen and Berlin, László Lakner now lives and works exclusively in Berlin, in the Charlottenburg district. Among other art shows, he was invited three times to participate in the Venice Biennale (1972, 1976 and 1990) and once to documenta in Kassel (1977).