“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

“Being a small schoolboy, I was a fan of Indian/Wild West stories, even organized an Indian tribe. The teacher, having an excellent pedagogical sense, tried to revert my attention to the school objects and one day she asked: Do you know where the Wizard of the Rocky Mountains lives? Quite excited, in the afternoon I went to the given address.

After the ringing -even now I hear the shuffling as closes-, the door opened and there was the painter Ferenc Zajthi with a huge beard. Whom are you looking for? – he asked. The Wizard of the Rocky Mountains – I replied in astonishment. He entered the studio with a smile. I’m a painter as well – I said encouraged. He answered: Sit down and draw something, young man! This was the beginning.” Without exaggeration, we found as well our Wizard of the Rocky Mountains. We walk in mythic light-environment, ancient cave paintings came to life in the dark, flying across a nebula painted with light, we enjoy a cathartic experience inside a Trinitarian Abbey…

….the story continues with a ten-metre-high candle slowly burning down, but, building back in the darkness, it lights again, heralding: the life is eternal! This procedure was a part of the daily life of the downtown Copenhagen for three months. The symbolic flaming of the candle means light and reason, and it proclaims the memory. Candle and Lux: well, we are at physics.

The light-art is a compound of the poetic fantasy, the scientific research, and the engineering precision. The optoelectronic revolution needed to be added. Starting from the seventies, the international scientific literature of the laser technology and holography contains not only the names of László Moholy-Nagy, Dénes Gábor, Gyorgy Kepes (of MIT) but of Norbert Kroó and our host as well. The method of superposition is an international trademark. Supported by strong laser technology, nearly 300 objects were produced till now.

Due to the laser, the cooperation of artists, physicists, and electic engineers provides us new possibilities of visual expressions: here are the light performances and the holograms.

Another surprise: the staircase was built of the excess stones of the Budapest Basilica. It was legal that time. A part of the studio leads us to the future, the other back to the past. In the middle: cacti, they are enduring the direct sunlight coming down from the roof window. Remaining at ancient legends, we start to see the pictures with the objects investigating the runic writing.

We learn novel and great things about the light, when talking on coloured plastic chips and enamel paints.

The “Signal Bars”: a strange coded message, perhaps from the Present to the Future. the multicomponent material, covered by special stains, is causing a unique, iconic effect. The mixed paints, the light-reflecting metal colours, the low-angle illumination of engineered inclination give a new meaning to the artistic pleasure.

The barbaric island, Aru-Adu: is it myth or reality? It is not importat at all. The moral of the story is impressive: the island accepts the well-intetioned people while it becomes unvisible for the bad ones.

Alas, the 20th century made a fetish of innovation, while the profit chase and the narrowed emotions caused uninspireless. There is no problem with the avant-garde tendencies, because there are many questions to be raised again and again, and the world need always be reinterpreted. Incorporating the scientific achievements into the arts, and the cutting-edge technology help to redefine the very elementary possibility of the expression: the line. Using linear drawings we can reach the beginning of the time, getting new possibilities of vistas.

The light-painting is a technical art. We hope the time is not far when the laser will be a part of our life, to project peculiar worlds for ourselves, and we can intimate our inner transcendental desire, the desire to return back to the time when it was natural the faith and the magic.

7/6/2011 Budapest

“I remembered the giant mulberry tree in our garden, among the green leaves you see the brown boughs, across the foliage the weak afternoon sky shines out… I received an order to create a side windowpane for the portico of a hundred-years old wooden cottage in Sweden.

Having there only snow for months, why not is possible to enjoy the atmosphere of the warm summer days, even if for passing away minutes, when stepping out to the frozen word? I loved this picture so much that I create for myself a smaller windowpane of same colors and techniques.”

“My ancestors were artists, I started to make ceramics since I was six years old, I learned the fire enameling and the glass plumbing, but I spent my life in the artist district of Szentendre in vain, my parents wanted me to run a non-artist career, because they were anxious. So I became a forest engineer. Had I not been dealing with glass, I would have been, by qualification, a tour operator for hunting. I like the smell of plumbing, of the paint, of turpentine. When I moved my workshop to the tiny storeroom of a ten-storey building, I decided to produce lamps of glass, and I knew I were happy if I could afford my expenses and some food “

We met at the “Szimultán” School of Fine and Applied Arts. A real friendly atmosphere of Óbuda, a calm patio, a vanishing romance. In addition to the management of the school teaching drawing, glass arts, and interior decorating, she can enjoy her artistic inclinations.

She works with fusing. Modeling with clay first, a mold is made of plaster. A glass plate or glass collage is placed onto the mold, melting together in a special furnace. This new technology gives limitless opportunities.

She is experimenting zealously and consciously. Prints of leaded glass are prepared, stained-glass mosaics are melted, not only for flat surfaces, but for any other forms.

To make golden letters visible from both sides? Professionals do know that this is nearly impossible. But she succeeded; the sacred letterings will be at the entrance of the Church of St. Paul the apostle at Madárdomb, East Budapest.

Working with fired enamels gives plenty of ideas. Millefiori inlays are often used for pendants. The special Venice/Murano glass is well fitted to this green field.

This furry freak thing is a product of glass recycling, it is crushed glass cast into mould. Homogeneity of the glass can be tested with polarized light. A surely homogeneous material needs to prevent the glass brick or the unique design object from cracking by time.

The glass bewitches and seduces. Its wide variety gives satisfaction to the diverse tastes. „ A friend of mine recommended me to create a classic Tiffany lamp for her healing osteopath. It was not to my taste. Among the geometric patterns of warm colours I concealed several flowers. After a year the customer brought back, he can not live with it. I bought back. A painter friend of us came, wanting to buy something for the 85th birthday of his mother. He chose this lamp. Soon the beloved one deceased. In her last minutes she looked at the lamp.” „Have you a more cheerful story? – After long silence we asked. „Do you think it is not the most humane story?”

25/5/2011 Budapest

Read more: ww.szimultan.hu

Apparently, the dancer’s shoe does not differ from the smart shoes of the trendy urban lady. Having a perfect structure, it emphasizes the figure. The owner will not fall prone even if she needs to run, nowadays a successful lady must not late!  But, return to race-dancers. Footwear of spike heels makes the muscular legs to fine femine ones.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        .

Beautiful ladies are flying along the parquet, their feet roam the swing and the cha-cha-cha with dazzling speed, eyes of the audience and the jury are engaged by this huge energy. But stop, man! These footgears are still only sport ones, aren’t they! „My work is supported by wonderful ladies. Stars, world champions. Each of them is very kind, working with them is a pleasure. Even if the introduction was a riddle, the answer: the structure and the material of the shoe helps the dancer to perfect her production.”

The boot last or boot-crimps is the key element how the footwear can be classic object even if the fashion overwrites the appearance. Last-makers are real sculptors of millimetres, preventing the problems of tight-here-stress-there. Unfortunately, this trade is not widely known recently. A good, “cast for me” last is a forever piece.

It is a real miracle that, as a fourth-generation member of the firm, he inherited a boot last collection, withstanding the test of time. A hundred years ago the success of the craft was to enhance perfectly the ankle, nowadays there should be much more. Sophisticated design, harmony with the fashion. Last year the “Juhos “brand has deservedly got over its 100th year!

“I make shoe copies as well. If a consumer requests, I reconstruct her beloved shoes of 10-20 years. The lasts I have are suitable for this work. True, four or five hours I am fiddling about to rebuild and to polish to reach a perfect form. To select a vocation, I had a great dilemma: to be a lawyer, a cook, or a shoemaker? At least, I became shoe designer, graduated at the College of Light Industry. For her father’s request, my mother (Katalin Juhos) passed as well her master’s examination. Many people know her at our shop at the Váci utca (the famous pedestrian street of downtown Budapest). She loves the comfortable but modern models made for middle-age women. To me, the youthful, flamboyant style matches.

The upper leather consists of at least 12 pieces, hand tailored, full of holes. It needs a lot of fiddling and patience.

When on the last, the uppers must be nailed around then glued to a specially assembled skin plate. The form is given by this. A steel piece is fixing the all. The most long-wearing outsole is made of thick cowhide

Five or six models are created a season, in several variations, with 40 heel options, in a variety of material and colour combinations. Even a piece of lace or a pearl can give a unique style.

You can choose plenty of leather textures. “Tanners are experimenting the bating procedures for 600-700 years. There is no such animal whose skin had not been managed to use, be ostrich or white ray.”

News is reporting that the Minister of Finance brings the new budget papers into the parliament in a water buffalo case. So he has orders for water buffalo shoes. This is not the ideal leather for shoes, but this shoe has an attitude, and it needs a respect of the wearer as well…

20/5/2011 Budapest

ERead more: www.juhoscipo.hu

Imagine: arriving to a client, you need not pass your visitcard, but just making a gesture with your cellphone, and immediately your company data will be loaded to the memory of your partner’s phone. We have only to use the motion sensors of the cellphones integrated more frequently. Well, the job is to invent suchlike ideas. This is the KIBU way of thinking. Based on the novel technologies, what can do with a given product, apart from its essential functions? To broaden the opportunities using the free imagination. To play with the ideas.

Maybe the idea has no buyer nowadays? This is not the goal! What is the Kitchen Budapest? Cooking or playing room, or teenager DIY workshop? Founded by the Hungarian Telekom in 2007 as a non-profit limited company, KIBU is an intermediating place: a mixture of studio, workshop, and exhibition, where, surrounded by gadgets and appliances, young researchers are dealing with the needs of young people. At a given time about 25 people. So far, about one hundred persons received research fellowships for at least 3 months, or for even ten months.

It is an entity of research and development, where like-minded researchers, driven by strong inner force, could enjoy the experience of the free creation, with coordinated support, in international environment, and by stable financial background. They can test their ability in practice. Participating in a special ambience, they can amalgamate their skills and creativity with artists and engineers.

Melinda Sipos studied glass art and new media design. For her, the artwork can not be associated with any object, material or genre. As one of the organizers of KIBU and as program consultant, she acts as a community engine. She brings together those who are interested in everything that moves, blinks, online or mechanic, not related to a single industry.

“The objects created at KIBU are presented at domestic and international festivals, art exhibitions, and company shows. Some of our projects may seem surprising or frivolous first: hunting virtual mosquitoes with burning cigarettes, creating little angels in a device by breathing (and sending them out by MMS)… But, in most cases, these are based on novel and unusual amalgamating of existing techniques. One of the fundamental aims of KIBU is to rethink and reinterpret the contemporary technical solutions, and their reposition into cultural context.”

Attila Bujdosó, architect.

“We use computers a lot. Typically, we imagine the digital world behind the computer screen now, even in this way it becomes the part of our physical environment. Computers have system architecture; and it is the same as any built environment around us: it has a structure and it obeys rules. The architect can very well travel inside the perspectives as being both an engineer and artist. He can zoom in and out between the totals and the details. Here in the KUBU the artists, designers, engineers and programmers are jointly investigating the relationship between the virtual and physical world. “

László Kiss studied music technology for three years in Cambridge. In the KIBU, he participated, for example, in creation of interactive beings (“gremlins”), “who” are able to change the colours and forms of a picture in a surface with blowing. Even an entire front of a building can be made more interesting.

What is a Bakarobo? A robot, designed for totally unnecessary function. The idea is to build it, because we can do it. A lamp, to select pastries. Sprayer to water off the duck’s back. A robot, licking the cat (perhaps it can shine shoes in the future).

Or a lawn mower, to write inscriptions into the grass using 14 hand blenders.

But there are real products as well. A pendrive, acting as an earring or key chain with Easter egg motifs. Nighmo, the bedside LED lamp, activated by light and motion sensors. Illuminating only in darkness, its battery is charged via USB connector.

Using both institutional and personal networking, the activity of KIBU can be followed all over the world. Researchers visited this workshop gain admittance into famous universities as students or teachers. The people working here are proud of that the world-famous start-up company, the PREZI was a spin-off of the KIBU.

12/5/2011 Budapest

Read more: www.kitchenbudapest.hu

“Why the Oriental rug is attracting the people? I always have wanted to decipher the mystery. Nothing is known on the motifs, recurring since immemorial times. In my childhood I had to sleep every afternoon.                       .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            .

Lying on the sofa at the living room, I admired the carpet for hours, instead of sleeping, of course. I can recall every details of the beautiful deep red Persian even now. The long afternoons I had enough time to imagine all kinds of things, seeing the patterns.”

At the University of Arts, studying textile arts, she realized that the carpet is much more than the people can see in it. After learning various weaving techniques she began to design carpets, deliberately overrunning the constraints of the traditional technology. Her first diploma rewrote the substantial and coloring rules of the traditional carpet-design. She called “illusionist” the works of that time. Instead of static routine rugs, she created floating and plastic surfaces with fine color transitions.

Her master’s degree further widens her limits: the carpet crossed even its traditional contours. Instead the square or rectangular shapes, makeable at loom, she designed and knitted amorphous, undulating, curly forms – these unusual carpets started on the ground and climbed up to the wall.

“ Even in college I entered into a French carpet design application, and, for my great astonishment, I won.  The first price was awarded in Paris, and soon I found myself in a French hand-tufting workshop. There were canvasses stretched on huge frames, into which the woollen tufts were shot by hand. I was totally engaged, for this was the theme of my thesis for the master’s degree as well.

For 13 years she commands the production of her custom-designed carpets at a small hand-tufting workshop. Her artistic pieces are made of pure wool; she shears special factures manually in it. One of her development, named “organic shearing”, received the Award of Excellence of the Hungarian Council of Design in 2004.

“The carpet in the apartment occupies a very large surface. It is very important to know,  for  whom and to where I will design. First I map the role of the to-be carpet in the interior. What is its task: to separate or to connect? It is the continuation of the furniture, or it will play a primary or secondary role as a separate island? In this way the mere ’space’ will be a ’place’, and the ’house’ will be a ’home’.”

“The greatest joy for me when I can handle a professional job with high level artistic work, and with the customer’s satisfaction. When, delivering a new carpet, a happy smile appears at the face of the adults, and the children assault it, starting to jump on it wildly. „

4/5/2011 Pilisszentlászló

„Az Iparművészetin díszítő festőnek készültem, de az üveg jobban érdekelt. Volt a cseheknél optikai üvegtömb, abból hozzánk nem jutott a hatvanas években. Nem nyugodtam bele. Síküvegből ragasztottam össze tömböt. Mindenre magamtól kellett rájönnöm. Már a tervezéskor kezdődtek a problémáim, napokig kínlódtam a szerkesztéssel.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         .

Emlékszem, a Főiskolán pontosan meg kellett rajzolnunk a lépcső árnyékát. Ha nem utáltam volna annyira a feladványt, nem szenvedtem volna később annyit.”

Sok kísérlet vezetett az első csillogó művekhez.

Pontos rajz alapján kivágja az üveget. A szobor belső plasztikájához, a kellő fényhatáshoz a foncsort kitakarja, homokfúvással lemarja a kimaradt felületet. Aztán egymáshoz ragasztja az üveglapokat. Már ’csak’ a nyersen kiálló, durva éleket kell gondos, kitartó munkával a tökéletességig lecsiszolni és felpolírozni.

Az üvegrétegekbe zárt belső terek lenyűgözőek és talányosak.

A szobrok előtt elsétálva, hol egy gömb lebeg a térben, hol kitárul egy rejtélyes kapu. A misztériumot csak emeli a matt és ragyogó felületek váltakozása.

Bolyongunk az ódon művésztelepen. Negyven éve belakott műterem és műhely. A fal mellett üvegtáblák sokféle színben, vastagságban, különleges foncsorokkal. Eleinte feszélyező a törékeny környezet. De kiderül, súlyos darabok között beszélgetünk. Nem lehet ellenállni a kísértésnek: a Katedrális hűvös üvegdomborulatát végig simítani, bizony kélyes-hűvös érzés.

„Kénytelen voltam beletörődni abba, hogy nem lehet modern, ipari eljárással elérni azt a felületet, amire vágytam. Nem volt mit tenni, ’kőkorszaki’ módszerekhez kellett folyamodni, kézzel csiszolni és polírozni.”

Több munkafázisra és szerszámra van ehhez szükség. A technikai részben kizárólag a praktikum volt a cél. Működjön! A gépek részben saját tervezésüek. A vízszintes vaskorongra vizes sziliciumkarbid (a smirgli anyaga) csorog több fázisban a durvától a púder finomságú szemcséig. Azon kell koptatni a felületet.

A függőleges kerámia korongot régi varrógép kupplungja működteti. Finoman forgat, mert ólomcsapágyas. Egy nagy kalapácsütéssel megvan a karbantartás. Temérdek időre és sok gyakorlatra van szükség a végeredményhez. „Nyolc óra csiszolás hat a lélekre, az erőnlétre, egyben erősít és puhít. Ez egy ’body building’ művészet.”

28/12/2012 Budapest

Díjak:

Munkácsy-díj (1984)

Érdemes Művész (1997)

Életrajz és életmű:
Nagy T. Katalin: Illúzió és illumináció Bohus Zoltán
(kiadja: Geopen Könyvkiadó, 2009)

In the morning I go down to the workshop, almost not standing up from my seat until ten o’clock at night. Unpacking my tools, a picture appears in my mind: garden of flowers, starry night sky, fairies, mermaids. Outside world disappears. I have periods: bubbles, tendrils, lotus leaf. First, I have to decide, what I create: hand, foot, neck or belly jewelry. Having ready the base, the tale of the object comes. Silver wire is wrapped.

Ends will be hammered se softly as if we strike a line with brush. I inset Swarovski crystals, moonstones of enchanting play of blue light, rock crystals, freshwater pearls. These things are not expensive, but valuable. I have not two jewelries of same kind. I am glad if that people divine my tale. Especially the kids are adaptive, they can tell me all what I dreamed.

Graduated at a Budapest high school, I immediately went to France to learn how to make leaded glass. After three years of studying I had enough of the dirty Tiffany style. I do not like the tin-lead soldering. So I made some tiny wrought-iron jewelry just for my consolation. I invented ear jewelry. Then I was stopped at the streets, everywhere: where you got this?

My friends took me to the exhibition of the Young Artists’ Club, founded by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Thrilling with fear, I asked: what I was doing here? I got into a team of real cool artists, who dare to do special things. Dear old ladies stopped at my desk: ‘how beautiful! It is the same as at the time of my grandmother!’ They paid by check, I did not ever know where to cash.”

Then I was invited to the masquerade ball of Pierre Cardin. The belle of the ball wore my iron lace mask. Her photo appeared in the Vogue. The organizers noted my name. I serially got professional orders to create fans, masks, even the crown of Sleeping Beauty in the theatre. In a castle near Paris Gothic balls of period dresses are regularly organised, my jewelry is popular there. At the Carnival of Venice my masks are worn mostly by men…so my glass objects lagged behind definitely.”

“There is a goldsmith’s workshop in Paris. We ten rent it, paying annually. The price is reasonable, and there are old but well-tried devices: a soldering machine, well controlled by a prehistoric pedal as a sewing machine. Machines, with which I can handle bigger blocks as well. A grinding device can produce matt, silk or glossy surfaces.  In the workshop we are usually five or six. One of us is working even with diamonds. Recently I use silver. Silver is breathing, I feel better using it. It is clear as snow, shines like the Moon, and becomes me.”

We are sitting at the porch of her grandparent’s house of Art Nouveau style. “ The most important things for me are the freedom and the spontaneity of my life. I have some driving force; my head is full of ideas. I wanted to know the fundamental techniques, so I enrolled in a goldsmith school, but wherever I go, I visit the local masters, to learn more. I have a box containing the things what I need to work under way. And carrying my small case of presenting I am admitted everywhere.”

A part of my family lives in Cambodia; there are friends in India. I go to the crowded night market, where artisans are selling among huge trees, lanterns are lit, there is music, and people come and go. I get a small place at the traditional Indian textiles. I put some candles, decorating my stall with a few leaves, this is the background. People like the handmade things, it is a fun for me, and helps my life run. How I would like to create once a huge, thick, not-to-wear piece of jewellery!”

20/4/2011 Budapest

Read more: www.andreakutassy.com

“I create something not because somebody needs it. At one time I loved to draw, but now I cannot imagine sitting down and pulling lines, shaping tonalities. I had a period based on factures, that time I made pictures from organic matters. I did not use even paints. Blue vitriol, chloride of lime, golden mica, ferric chloride… – he shows- I burned glues on it, even pressed hair and strawberry jam. They often ask: why strawberry jam? “ “For you have had only this at home” – we answer in chorus

. “And why the hair? General belief is that hair cutting is an ancient symbol of separation. But I did not know this that time.” At high school, he wanted to study graphics, but enrolled to be sculptor. At the College already his major was painting.

Handel’s music is played. “I probably like it, because the Baroque music is organic as well, building on contradictions, parts are spiraling around, one is sometimes lost dissolving in the fugues, then, abruptly, all instruments tune up to the topic.” The music CD expires, but in no time we ask him to start one of his own composition. “Surely you use computer. Did you do music? No? Then you will do!”

I saw his painting at an exhibition of contemporary artists. It was the most exciting object. I slowly observed that I was not able to pass by, my eye was sliding on the colours.

He never decides when to paint beforehand. Canvasses and paints are heaping. Meanwhile, the life as usual: teaching, exhibitions, music. Then the right day arrives… “I become unrestful, walking and fussing around all day. As I observed, I start to paint around 10 o’clock evening. That time nothing disturbs me.”

He attacks the canvass in extasy, with hands in rubble gloves, with brushes. “Finishing the intensive fight, I get tired as weight-lifters after 2 minutes. Usually I do not remember what I had been thinking of. I know the work is done, because I am happy and I cannot add anything to the artwork. Then I sit down against it on the armchair, looking at it 2-3 hours.”

“Once a group visited me. One of the ladies complained, quite irritatedly, why I do not finish my paintings. We started to talk: the empty parts I leave highlight the composition, motifs can get air from these omittings. At the end, she stayed for the longest. While arguing a lot, she was the mostly interested.”

The greatest praise comes unexpectedly. One day a visitor was accompanied by his teenager daughter. That time the designer jeans were scarce and expensive, but she really wanted one. The father’s offer was one jeans or two small pictures. She chose the pictures.

Talking about the creation of sculptures, he notes: “ I have very good neighbours”.

He likes young people. “These children know how to draw very well. My job is to shepherd them where to go further, and which way has a dead end. “ He recently patricipated in a group exhibition of contemporary artists at the Yogyakarta Art University in Indonesia. There is a symbiosis of every branch of arts, starting from music, fine arts, to the lanscape arts.” We asked: what is that? “ Just one example. In the centre of the campus there is a huge, beautiful old tree. We were joking, that they surely planned the university buildings around this tree. It turned out that this was the truth. “ Perhaps the world works in this way!

13/4/2011 Budapest

Read more:
www.kopasztamas.hu

The old, rough brick wall has the sense of originality. It is a clean, pure material, the simple forms appear step-by-step. The exhibition space itself is the dark room. Humming and whispering, and a bike light flashes. Exposure  The Light Cyclist jumps down from the bike, hustling to the wall. Systematic but routine movements, he processes the light-sensitive plate with developer then fixative. A Light Magic Picture was produced, observed by the wondering spectators!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Look out for the famous performance tool. “My daughter and I are traveling by bike, there is no space for a third in the passage. Anyway, the ‘light cycle’ in an old, rundown piece. “ He has a special attraction to bike. “For me, the bike means the childhood in the sixties, a symbol of liberty.

I was sixteen when I got my Practica. I remember, the price was 2800 HUF, a full month good salary that time. All of my pocket money went to make photos.”

I graduated at the photographer’s school in Budapest, but I did not want to be neither photographer, nor cameraman. When the photographer takes the picture, the work is done, while my studio work starts at this point. Where photography and painting meet, I work in this thin line.

The technical knowledge, the teenager obsession of photography, the draughtmanshipness coming from home, and the artistic attitude receiving at the Bakonyi art school together produced a big bang. From 1989, new era started: the Minyo period. “This was the title of my first exhibition, and the name worked.”

Since then we talk about the photographic table images of Minyó. “Unique table images are produced by my unique photographic approach.”

The cover of the latest Minyó-box opens, and we review nostalgically the old photos: dancers shooted from an old black-and-white TV set, family tablewares, football scenes, the family dog, and family fates.

How could come here the series of summer holiday photos on the well-heeled girls (bequest of the Töttermann family), for example? And why is an old landscape interesting, where the amateur photographer positioned a battered electric pole just on the centre of the photo?

The presentation of the box is a surprise, but the poem is almost certain: “Do not give up anything, because who resigned something will dry up in it / But you must neither be the slave of desires, / Walking with restained passions just as hard / as being crumbled among liberated passions ” (Weöres S.: Taming the Desires)

6/4/2011 Budapest

Elérhetőség: www.minyo.hu

“I liked the forests; I always wanted to be a forester. I tracked the deer and the wild boar. Engaged in the sculpture, I ceased to frequent the forests. Nude models were not particularly interesting for me. During the lessons at the academy, I made a sculpture of a wild boar, avoiding any stir. I concealed it here and there, but once Master Pátzay noticed it at the secluded corner of the classroom.

Mustering it he said: It is easy to form something what one has never seen!”Then came the years of the sculptor expertise.

“I did not know that lime is not recommended to carve. The material of the ‘Mother and child’ statue was refused to obey. It was cracking and getting bristle, so I got angry, and after petrolization I wanted to burn. But it became harder and harder… since then, no amount of money having changed it.”

On his desk there is a six-inch red marble statue, modestly. “A broken stepping-stone was lying on the street. Inside the piece of Tardos red marble there was a cephalopod fossil. I took it home, and around it I carved a figure. There were many to desire to buy the ’Introducing the Snail’ later.”

He was always engaged in the question: what is common in animals and humans? We are using a lot of adjectives to characterize the human behavior: pig, fish, stallion, hedgehog, goose… First, only the effect in coincidence of the anatomical proportions caused his interest.

“If standing on all fours and I lengthen the lower shanks, it becomes to be similar to a roe deer. The shortened legs of a deer: like a man. The body structures have almost no difference. My friends told me: ‘you had better not to show it anywhere’. Nevertheless, I nominated one of these to a wine festival, but it was not displayed, because a German tourist observed it, bought it, and took it with him.” It was twenty years ago. Since then, here became a nice collection from the human-animal sculptures.

At the 1996 Exhibition of contemporary art at the Art Hall, he thought a high. “I nominated three figures: the wild boar, the fawn and the hen, wanting to fly. They put them out of sight, into a small room at the backyard. In these occasions ‘laureate’ sculptors award the best one with the ‘Oscar of Sculptors’ by secret ballot. For my surprise, I was called at the closing day: ‘where are you? Everybody, the press, the TV want you, you are the winner!’”

There is an other bittersweet story on the winning sculpture, awarded by the Angling Association. The customer refused to take it over. Instead, in an anonymous way, they made some catfish, hook in its mouth. My beautiful mermaid was sold out quickly, in numbered series.

Those understanding or even challenging the humor, are in the very best place. A crab eating set, found at the legacy of the Gundel family, served as model for the warlike scissors of the little bronze crab, just in preparation.

The sculptor’s work is loud and dirty. Fifty years ago, using some hardly scraped up money,  he succeeded to buy a lot in the outskirts of Szentendre. It was surrounded by cornfields, facing an old and neglected garden of walnut trees, its owner visited it rarely. Rather the game came there, visiting the place. His young years were spent with enthusiastic construction. Those having been discarded by the town below were integrated to the building at the vineyards, with the help of friends and relatives. In this way the ruined cabinet line of the main street pharmacy was saved.

Meanwhile the plaster casts were constructed busily. If one did not like, he threw to the other side of the street. “ I thought the next Community Removal will clear them all. Only later, when the housing estate was built on the site of walnut trees, my neighbor confessed, that he stored all of the plaster pieces.” Well, nothing is over. People blessed with expert eye appreciate the particularity, even if the artist dissatisfies with his work.

30/3/2011 Szentednre

Kossuth-díj 2013.

“Indeed, you need serious physical stamina first. Later you will learn how to feel the hot, molten glass shaking on the end of the pipe. You concentrate strongly; focusing to the movements only, turn the pipe slowly, then quickly. No sudden moves, being flustered can be dangerous. I can say that you get a ZEN state: only you, the glass, your imagination, the joint moves… this is the right balance. This is the way you will be able to do anything.

Why the crafts are so popular and of high quality in Britain? “Because there was a man: John Ruskin, who (a more than hundred years ago) launched a movement to counteract the industrial revolution. The ‘Arts and Crafts’ brought back the mediaeval craft techniques, while seeking to establish a modern style.” This needed a receptive public, of course, who recognized the importance of the initiative. To preserve the tradition, schools, universities, and workshops were formed.

The trend of the ‘studio glass’ started in the US in the sixties. In the small glasshouses, being established one after the other, unique objects were produced by no-industrial methods. This trend spread to England as well.

“ I graduated at the Sunderland College of Glass and Ceramics. A number of similar institutions operate in England. Typically, from my thirty classmates only two or three remained at glass. Today about fifty glasshouses is working in Great Britain. At the studio glass movement, a part of the ceramic artists skifted to the glassworks. It is interesting that two-thirds are women.”

For nearly twenty years he tested many techniques, mostly in London, as one of the leading artist of the L. A. Studio Glass Design, expert in producing large asymmetric objects, and metal patina technique. Orders were abundant.

It was very different engaging in glass pane. Maybe there is only four companies of the world similar in size to the Fusion Glass Design Ltd. They produce decorative glass for buildings. Glass panes are produced for construction with fusing. To produce a glass pane of ten cm thick, even in size of 2×3 meter, the molten glass is spreading then cooling down in 16 huge furnaces. “Can you imagine what feels like to enter an office building with 600 large decorative panel, manufactured by your participation as well?”

“The hot glass is falling outward from three meters height, when opening the bottom of the furnace. I never suffered physical damage. To reach a safe and tension-free status, the glass must be cooled down for days. Then the disc-form cast glass was processed in cold state, decorating with various elements, later softening again in molds, finally we cooled down it again. We were able to produce anything in any size, because we knew what to do. It was in the workshop of Danny Lane.”

“A friend of me invited me to go to Tokod, Hungary, to participate in an international glass conference. There I met Betti.” For the sake of his later wife, Bernadette Hegyvári, a glass artist as well, he moved to Hungary in 2008.

The British studios maintain to order his door keys, decorated with bubbles of baking soda, the glass chalices ornamented with exciting motifs, and the vases. Just now he makes 200 ‘cloudlets’ to decorate a London children’s hospital, and lampshades, decorated with silver foils for a Hungarian interior designer.

He teaches the craft together with his friend, Gergő Pattantyús (see the other report in this website).

The hot parison is formed with scrap paper in his palm. “ The wet paper is appropriate for this work, for due to the resulting vapour the glass can slide on it. The interior of the wooden mold is the best when carbonized a little. We would like to organize a lot of courses, because this industry is beautiful. “

“Come here in summer, you can blow a glass for yourself!”

23/3/2011 Tápiószecső

Read more: www.jamescarcass.com