Darvas Árpád

“I wanted to be a racing driver. My aunt said I had to be a shop assistant, but the family voted against: I was too thin. My mother took me to the printing office, but they needed typesetters only. It was no good as well, for you get sick lungs of lead. The printer suggested trying the Arts and Craft High School. It turned out that the term began, but I could take an extra entry test.

“After the war, the best artists came there to teach. The school had a good atmosphere, we were friends supporting each other.”

“We needed no looking for orders. Before a film was introduced at the movies, the state-owned film company called us to create a poster. In downtown Budapest, there was a small screening room, where we can see the film helped by an interpreter. It was all left up to us. They had a say in the matter if the money was limited: make two-colour prints!

We made a lot of posters. The printers did not care about anything. The paint was flowing on the floor, they printed on second-hand paper, using the back of the sheet. Only political posters were made of better quality.

Computers killed the graphic art. I designed a wine label for a famous winemaker. He liked my design, but the printer did not accept my colour separations, asking digital bitmap files. So I broke with drawing, and retired.

You need always to do something. I make my sculptures of packing material of household appliances. To carve this stuff is not a pleasant work, but I can do at my desk. I do it for myself, and I enjoy it.

My statues have a Chinese influence. I like the Chinese literature. It is genial, structurally differs from the European one. I watch Chinese channels on the TV, even if I don’t understand the text. Western people do not pay attention to human values, being interested in the money.

You always have to deal with what the time dictates. I am a real picture-addict, just taking photos. I am shooting the women from magazines, seeking mainly historical characters. I have got a computer from my son, storing my pictures to there. The good photo contains the soul, so it is human and authentic

People project their egos unconsciously. They think they alter changing something. But the soul cannot be changed, because the soul comes of the ancestors, of the family. For example, every child of today knows that he lives badly. For his environment tells it to him.

“That time my father was expelled from Czechoslovakia, because he identified himself as ethnic Hungarian. We had nothing at home. We received an emergency flat of 5×5 m size, in a freaky yard of the Main Street. It was totally empty. There was a hole in the wall for the flue. We went to shop to the nearest grocery. They even used a tipper balance, also giving credits. I was a small kid, knowing Hungarian a little. But our parents never told us that we are living badly.”

The nice afternoon is filled with contemplation. Do you need to accept anything what the well-paid scientists say, just for they have a good brain? Is the art a bunkum really? How the human taste can change? May you paint icons just for fun?

“People do not deal with the basic things. There are two things you may not know where to be: the soul and the God. When Moses arrived to the mountain of God, he asked God what to say to the people, who he is? What is his name? He answered: ‘I am who is’ “

14/4/2013 Budapest