Mata Attila

I did not care about Picasso at all. A fig for him! But, I got him as a thesis for state exam: I had to analyse the Guernica. From then on, I studied him a lot, especially the portraits of Dora Maar of tragic life. Picasso saw forms everywhere, transforming to plane everything what he saw in the space. And I develop back his paintings to the space, freely using Picasso’s ideas. .

Artists favour to reprocess the works of worthy predecessors. As Picasso painted the ‘Painter’ after El Greco, I create the sculpture version of the ‘Painter’ of Picasso. It aroused even the attention of a serious connoisseur of Picasso, he asked a version.”

He makes a lot of sketches on movements, muscles, bones. Sometimes years passed when a piece could be incorporated to a statue. He is working, looking for that something that somehow unfits into the whole. He says that a ‘cuckoo’s egg’ is needed. This is the point which attracts the viewer, fixing him to stand at the object.

Every good sculpture has an anomaly, to catch the eye. For example, the head. His heads are always different.

“The ‘infinite space’ keeps my mind occupied for long time. If you open a closed body, looking inside, you see a dark space without definite end. To develop this space is a gruelling, hard task for a sculptor.”

“At the start I worked with bronze and wood only. Then I painted my statues. I discovered the aluminium recently. It is a beautiful material. You can combine it well with wood and glass.

 The sculptor’s problem is the object itself, he needs to create an object what the viewer can receive. We need to entrust him, what he observe in the object. It is not the task of the sculptor to inflict himself on the viewer.”

“I make even assembled statues. Consisting of 4-5 pieces, you can put together in several ways. The interactive sculpture should be such that it remains a sculpture even if assembled by any way. Collectors are very fond of it. Some of them insist to put together the statue alone at home.”

A collector visited him when he realised that his new, modern house, purpose-built for his stately collection of antiquities, does not tolerate the curiosities. The cool minimalist environment sought these funny and puzzle-out-it sculptures.

Just now, he has no work in public. The “Great Reclining Woman”, a paraphrase of Michelangelo’ allegorical statue, “The Night”, is resting in his garden. It was a hard task to get a casting workshop for this statue of 40 pieces. In that time everybody wanted to cast a sculpture of St. Stephan.

At last, this sculpture was ready, and in 2004 it was presented by the Society of Sculptors at the Erzsébet square on the occasion of European accession. Its fate was caused by the plastic, painted cows of the European Union. Organisers wanted exactly to replace it by the cows, so it was removed. Now “she” is relaxing in the garden, surrounded by plaster moulds, and dense bush, wrapped by tall wild flowers.

28/8/2012 Biatorbágy

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