10 Questions with Peter Horvath

Peter Horvath is a photo-based and New Media artist who was born in Toronto, Canada. Embracing digital technologies at the birth of the Web, he created audio/video narratives through selective editing of film footage and his early collages. His new work similarly focuses on deconstructing and recontextualizing imagery through assemblage, drawing from personal and found materials.

Merging street ephemera, movie posters, photographs, ink and spray paint, Horvath's densely layered assemblage portraits reflect his fascination with media consumption, cultural icons, and urban decay. He shares an affinity with the Décollage of the 1960's Nouveau Réalistes Mimmo Rotella and Jacques Villeglé.

Horvath obscures his central characters with peeling, torn paper fragments, and paint, frenetically surrounding a stilled subject using imagery of friends, family, and celebrated public figures. When Peter Horvath began doing these works, he considered how we had become a society obsessed with aging, clinging to, and pursuing our emblems of youth. The images of the people Horvath chooses for these portraits have strength and vitality - he places them among the wreckage of crumbling, entropic elements - suggesting nothing lasts forever.

peterhorvathartist.net | @lushhungarian

Peter Horvath's work is included in numerous private and permanent collections internationally, including the Nion McEvoy collection, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and in 2016 an addition to the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is the recipient of commissions from Rhizome.org at The New Museum, NYC (2005) and Turbulence.org New Radio and Performing Arts, Boston (2004). He has received numerous grants from The Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council for his New Media work.

Horvath has exhibited in museums and galleries globally, including the Rise Art Prize Exhibition in London UK, and Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto, Canada, 2018. Other exhibitions include the Whitney Museum Of American Art's Artport (NYC), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Québec City, Canada), and FILE Electronic Language International Festival (São Paulo, Brazil).

INTERVIEW

Before talking about your art, could you tell us about yourself? Who is Peter Horvath?

Artist, father, lush, nerd.

What kind of education or training helped you develop your skillset?

I’ve been around cameras all my life; both grandfathers and my father were photographers, so working with images has always been part of my existence. I developed a very particular visual aesthetic at an early age by constantly making and editing groups of pictures. 

Please describe the intention behind your art. How do you successfully express this intention?

Much of my new assemblage works obscure the central characters with peeling, torn paper fragments, and paint, frenetically surrounding a stilled subject. I “camouflage” through the placement of elements, be it pieces of text or cut and ripped paper. Concealing the underlying subtexts and partly shrouding the identity of the person creates puzzles of meaning for the audience to uncover. 

Your work “Frida Kahlo” is among the original works published in the ISSUE06. Could you tell our readers the secrets behind this artwork?

The people I use in my work are my heroes, and I am interested in presenting these larger than life personalities large scale, so almost all these works are 60”x50”. I use painting and ink in combination with torn posters with the Frida Kahlo piece, and the use of these components, along with the printed image, are inspired by what I see on the walls of the cities I travel. I’m drawn to the entropic, crumbling urban infrastructure, the visual leftovers of consumer culture that exist as deteriorating ephemera covering the cities we inhabit.

How do you discuss the aesthetic though manipulating reality and illusion, by deconstructing and recontextualizing imagery through assemblage?

My portraits are densely layered and reflect on my fascination with media consumption, cultural icons, and urban decay. These works share an affinity with the Décollage of the 1960’s Nouveau Réalistes Mimmo Rotella and Jacques Villeglé. Through reverential reference, I feel I am launching into a new territory of assemblage & collage.

Do you have a role model that you’ve drawn inspiration from when creating your art?

While working, I listen to music - lately, it’s been, Kendrick Lamar and John Coltrane. They both create frenetic, musical landscapes that lead me to energetically place/rip/splatter and paint so that I could call them inspiring role models of a different genre. Visually speaking, Francis Bacon’s sublime paintings & the work of the Dadaist John Heartfield, which years ago, inspired me to create collage work.

Is there a photograph you consider a “breakthrough” in your work regarding approach or subject matter? 

There isn’t a specific image of mine that was a breakthrough per se, but my early Marilyn piece “Beautiful Loser” was the beginning of my mixed media experimentation.

Today, the world is facing the pandemic COVID–19. What is a typical day like for you? How do you continue doing your art under these circumstances?

I have converted the garage behind my home into my studio, so I am never far from my work. My days consist of early wake up to take my daughter to school, then take care of emails and any art-related business, finally moving into the studio space to work. It’s not much different from before COVID, but I’m socializing quite a bit less than previously.

What do you hope that the public takes away from your work?

When I began making these assemblage portraits, I considered how we had become a society obsessed with aging, clinging to, and in pursuit of our emblems of youth. The images of the people I choose have strength and vitality - I place them among the wreckage of crumbling and torn fragments - suggesting nothing lasts forever.

What other interests do you have outside of art?

I am a dedicated Yogi (25+ years), and several years ago, my wife surprised me with an electronic drum kit, allowing me to play drums in the house (as real drums are too loud for domestic use), which re-ignited a lost childhood passion. But in the end, I always veer back to art-making as my most important interest.