Szabó Tamás

“It is exciting to me how to think effectively on the space. I consider myself a sculptor, but I paint with the same energy as well. My paintings are rather sculptors too. Sometimes I colour my sculptures. The two artistic forms always interact.”

He is enquired on his statues on public places, for we want to understand the form of the Salgótarján 1956 memorial, almost floating on one fixed point. „I wanted a talented solution, how is possible to disagree with the laws of statics. You cannot know whether the man is to run escaping or to fall“.

An other enigmatic work is the Karl Lutz memorial in the Jewish Quarter of Budapest., a flying man in a ribbon. The Swiss diplomat helped to save 62,000 Jewish people. The Gypsy Holocaust Memorial in Budapest is a “peephole” statue. The black triangle of shiny granite column is a symbol; the triangle marked the Gypsies in the concentration camps. The gold-plated inner surface of the statue is “glowing” as from the fire of crematoriums, behind the tongues carved into the granite we can see only a piece of a golden, crippled people.

The Százados street Art Colony, in suburban environment, next to the football stadium is 100 years old this year. Our imaginations are wandering: what life was here before. The buildings want renovations badly as well. He lives and works here. We are almost in the downtown, but you feel free to hammer the metal, to carve stone, to cut with chain-saw.

In the studio there is little evidence of classic sculptures. “In 2005, full with the previous aesthetics, I am through with the statuettes

Slat-irons and wrought iron nails came. He looked for new plastic ideas. Although the rivet-heads are nicely gathered, …

“… I am just at the beginning of the working out this form system; I have 10 years’ work at least.”

The riveted figures were inspired by the Tisza culture of 7000 years. “I found this beautiful idol of large bums in the Tornyai Museum.” Just now, a part of this series of wood and aluminium is in Moscow, at the joint exhibition of the MORF group.

Each sculpture has a special message. The statue of Kazo (el Kazovszky) is accompanied even by his dog. I hope we can once wander in a forest of statues together.”

“The world is approaching to the brutality.” Perhaps after African antecedents, these heads were made in 2009.

“I like to do what I do; I come to the studio, I do my work, then go to bed, get up and continue. If I walk out of the Art Colony, the problems start. I need to buy tram tickets…”

15/6/2011 Budapest