Pinczehelyi Sándor - Overprint

Sándor Pinczehelyi’s graphic album reconsiders the emblematic motifs of his oeuvre from a

new perspective, while offering a distinctive overview of his decades-long artistic practice.

More than a retrospective or summary, the project constitutes a self-reflexive gesture: earlier

visual elements are reorganized into new configurations, their meanings shift, and alternative

interpretive trajectories are articulated. The recurring forms and compositional structures not

only evoke Pinczehelyi’s characteristic visual language, but also open up new modes of

reception - creating a conceptual space in which earlier experiences intersect with the present

gaze. Rather than a chronologically structured selection, the portfolio unfolds as an

autonomous visual narrative, simultaneously drawing on previous periods and engaging

critically with contemporary contexts. This is not an act of nostalgic remembrance, but a

dynamic process of reinterpretation, through which the artist revisits, restructures, and

expands the horizons of meaning. A prominent figure of the Hungarian neo-avant-garde,

Pinczehelyi adopted a symbolically charged, conceptually oriented approach as early as the

late 1960s and 1970s. He reappropriated the well-known iconography of official visual

propaganda - such as the hammer and sickle, the red star, and formal elements of socialist

posters - through strategies of irony and critical détournement. The new album continues this

critical lineage but moves beyond direct quotation: it generates new layers of significance,

displaces the original contexts, and subjects them to analytical deconstruction. The

compositions are defined by horizontally structured and superimposed visual layers that

alternately conceal and reveal the motifs. This formal strategy operates not merely on an

aesthetic level but as a symbolic gesture that reflects on the mechanisms of cultural and

political memory, as well as on the mutable nature of collective iconographies. The materiality of

printmaking, together with the shifting and intersecting surfaces, constitutes both a structural

and conceptual foundation of the work. In this sense, the album functions as more than a visual archive:

it serves as an interpretive framework. It does not idealize or monumentalize the past, but approaches earlier

works with critical distance. The motifs are not simply recalled; they are layered, displaced,

and recontextualized, mirroring the ongoing processes through which personal and collective

memory are continually renegotiated. Through this gesture, Pinczehelyi reframes his earlier

visual vocabulary, transforming historical references into an open- ended narrative that speaks

directly to the present.

Somosi Rita

This portfolio was published on the occasion of Sándor PINCZEHELYI’s 80th birthday.

It contains 10 silkscreen prints.

A total of 25 numbered copies were produced: 20 portfolios numbered 1–20,

and 5 portfolios marked as Artist’s Proofs (AP I–V) for the artist.

Each print is hand-signed by the artist.

Printed at the screen printing workshop of Attila Jász in Pécs, in 2025.

Paper size: 910 × 700 mm | Fabriano Pittura Bianco 400 g/m²

Print size: 700 × 500 mm

The Prints:

PSM I. Geometry, 1970–2025

PSM II. Sickle and Hammer, 1973–2025

PSM III. Sheep, 1986–2025

PSM IV. As You Like It, 1988–2025

PSM V. Star, Coca-Cola, 1988–2025

PSM VI. Coca, 1991–2025

PSM VII. Fish, 2006–2025

PSM VIII. Zsolnay Vase, 2014–2025

PSM IX. Cobblestone, 2017–2025

PSM X. Artúr Lakatos, 2020–2025

Published by:

ZSDRAL ART