Lajos Csontó

(1964, Budapest)

Besides painting techniques, Lajos Csontó works with photography, video and installation. He has been making works using his own and found photographs as well as fragments of texts since the mid-1990s, in which he explores the relationship between archives, the flood of digital images and personal image use, as well as the reinterpretation of the portrait. He combines the often ironic and at times banal tension between visual and verbal elements, while maintaining a strong emphasis on the sensory presence of materials. He has regularly participated in exhibitions, artists’ colonies and professional events in Hungary and abroad since 1988. His works can be found in numerous public and private collections, including the Ludwig Museum, the Hungarian National Gallery and the Ferenczy Museum Centre. He held a Derkovits Scholarship between 1992 and 1995, and was awarded scholarships at the Hungarian Academy in Rome and the Cité Internationale des Arts. He received the Munkácsy Award in 2007 and the Pál Rosti Prize in 2022. He is a habilitated associate professor at the Eszterházy Károly Catholic University and a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.