This autumn Ernst Museum is presenting still-lives by Hungarian contemporary artists. Our exhibition is attempting to show a new approach to re-interpret and broaden this genre filtered through our age. The last comprehensive group exhibition of similar topic presenting the genre of still-life was in the seventies, in the National Gallery, where a selection from the Hungarian masters of the last one hundred years was on show.

The still-life being suitable for compositional experiments or for establishing an individual painterly point of view has an equal value as other genres of painting though its message is sometimes hidden requiring an in-depth examination. The objects occurring on the pictures can have the same significance as figures or landscape details: they can tell stories to the viewer and can even have a moral. Our object-centred consumer society gives even more currency to the contemplation of this genre. The products chosen by us, the objects surrounding us reflect our character, influence us and construct a personal portrait of their owner.

The exhibition entitled 'Still-lives' not only shows paintings but, confronting the common understanding of this genre, it displays photos, statues and installations too, which were made from the eighties up to now. Among the artists presented there is the internationally acknowledged elderly Tibor Csernus, who is based in Paris, but also the youngest, just graduated generation. In addition to the followers of traditional still-life painting like Szabolcs Mészáros or Csaba Flip works that challenge the boundaries of the genre will also be exhibited: Lóránt Méhes's or Pál Gerber's compositions of ironic tone, Attila Szűcs's work that has a dream-like, out of time quality, or the Block Group's Natura Morta extending to space.