Contradiction

Tibor Babos

War Collection

Paradox Constructivism / Constructive Unrealism

2024

60 x 50 cm (23.6 x 19.6 in)

Oil on 3D+ Canvas

Budapest

In Private Collection

In Contradiction (2023), Tibor Babos distills the mechanics of conflict into their most purified geometric form, crafting a visual language that eschews narrative and instead speaks through structure, tension, and paradox. Part of the artist’s Warcollection, the work does not depict combat, destruction, or violence directly—instead, it renders confrontation as an abstract condition of overlapping assertion. Through two sharply delineated prisms that seem to intrude upon one another’s space, Babos translates the act of war into the logic of design: an incursion without resolution, a collision without surrender.

The angular composition is deceptively simple—two diagonal bands of deep red and cyclamen twist through a brushed burgundy field, meeting at their mirrored edges like dueling blades. But within this spare configuration lies a tightly coiled tension. The forms do not rest in harmony; they resist absorption. They thrust and encroach, mirroring the psychological architecture of adversarial relations. These are not passive shapes—they are active actors, determined and irreconcilable. The title Contradiction makes this interpretation explicit: what appears to be a unified composition is in fact a field of silent antagonism.

Color serves as the emotional undercurrent. The saturated crimson tones evoke blood, sacrifice, and fire, while the luminous cyclamen tips suggest false confidence or ideological righteousness. Babos uses this palette not to beautify but to unsettle: the hues operate as metaphors for the illusions that underwrite every violent act—the belief in one’s own clarity, the blindness to the other’s pain. The visual effect is simultaneously alluring and disquieting, drawing the viewer in even as it cautions them to look deeper.

The execution is meticulous. Babos’s mastery of oil on 3D+ canvas is evident in the precision of the edges, the uniform brushwork, and the control of surface sheen. The burgundy field beneath the prisms possesses a subtle brushed-metal finish, achieved through directional layering techniques, giving the painting a mechanical, industrial quality. This textural choice reinforces the conceptual framing of modern conflict—not as a chaotic eruption, but as a cold, methodical process governed by systems and strategy. The resulting surface appears manufactured, but it is anything but. Every plane is the product of months of patient labor and exacting construction, emphasizing the contradiction between handmade craft and the inhuman structures it represents.

The 3D+ canvas plays a crucial role in animating the composition. When lit laterally, the red prisms seem to shift and hover, casting soft optical illusions that deepen the sense of spatial confusion and unresolved tension. What is flat becomes dimensional; what appears stable becomes volatile. In this way, Babos uses perceptual contradiction as a stand-in for philosophical contradiction: the more one looks, the less one is sure.

Contextually, the painting draws on the lineage of Constructivism and geometric abstraction—Malevich, Lissitzky, and the hard-edged minimalism of the 20th century—but it departs from those traditions through its injection of ethical and existential urgency. This is not formalism for its own sake. Babos, drawing from his background in national security and his firsthand knowledge of institutional violence, uses minimalism as a weapon of critique. He compresses the moral ambiguity of war into clean lines and logical structures, only to reveal their emotional and philosophical instability.

Contradiction is not meant to soothe. It is designed to agitate, to provoke, to reflect a global reality where clarity has collapsed under the weight of irreconcilable truths. In this sense, it functions not as a resolution, but as an unresolved question: How can two truths occupy the same space without annihilating each other? And what is the cost of pretending they can?

From a curatorial perspective, the painting holds significant weight. Its scale is intimate, but its presence is forceful. It is ideally suited to exhibitions dealing with geopolitical anxiety, philosophical abstraction, or contemporary minimalism. The optimal display environment would involve focused, side-directed lighting to activate the subtle texture shifts and allow the geometric illusion to destabilize the viewer’s gaze. Supplementary materials—quotes from Babos, sketches of earlier conflict-themed works, or conceptual mappings of his War collection—could further contextualize the piece. Yet the painting stands powerfully on its own, needing little explanation to communicate its force.

Ultimately, Contradiction is a meditation on intrusion, certainty, and the impossibility of peaceful overlap. Babos does not illustrate war—he reveals the structure beneath it. And in doing so, he invites us to consider where else, and how often, such contradictions quietly govern the fabric of our lives.