We are standing in a strange place: in a garden full of tombstones next to the New Public Cemetery. Why exactly do you work here?
This is a great place for a sculptor, because you can work here in winter and in sum-mer. There is a fairly large external storage facility, as you can see, it is packed with different kinds of stones, and I know of every single piece, what I am going to carve of it. And there is a covered shed where I can work when it rains. A closed workshop is also part of the building where I can store the finished sculptures and can work on finer jobs. This is a rented property I share with my partners; this way it’s easier to cover the overheads.
We are talking beside enormous carved stones looking like pieces of a monu-ment...
What you can see in the open area, is a monumental restoration in progress which we are working on with Attila Fekete, stone sculptor–conservator. This votive altar, which will be set up on Flórián Square, originally was ordered by the Zichy family around 300 years ago, during the plague. The stone I carve it of is a very good limestone from Fertőrákos or from Sóskút. Half of the city of Budapest was built of this stone, not only the buildings, but for example the statues of the Chain Bridge as well... It’s not used anymore, because unfortunately, the pit is no longer in operation. I picked it from a demolition. The process at this reconstruction is the following: first I draw the form of the statue, then I model it in plaster, on the basis of which I can carve it.
One needs to be careful, because it is very difficult to make corrections in this kind of stone.
The other statue you can see is a work to be placed in a public space. Teréz Borza ce-ramic artist’s work transubstantiated in stone. She is a Noémi Ferenczy state-prize-honoured ceramic artist, very famous, whose works are now preserved in collections in Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and so on. Since I am really impressed by her figu-rative porcelain sculptures, I had this idea why don’t we place some of her works in a public space.
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The choice of material in this case – Carrara marble – and the size of the statue was my decision. The idea and the form is her work, but the re-composition of the small-size ceramic sculpture to a publicly situated statue is mine. So I became a co-author, and this composition can be considered as our common creation. It will be placed in the 12th district in Budapest, as our gift.
How often have you happened to be listed as ‘co-author’?
It’s been a couple of times that I was instrumental as a co-creator to my fellow-art-ists’ public sculptures, for example when Master Pál Kő, the Kossuth Prize awarded sculptor was asked to prepare the tombstone of the Kossuth Prize holder poet István Bella. He dreamt the form in negative, I carved it in positive. Technically it was more complicated, required much more work, but the result is beautiful. Or, I could also mention a few famous masters whose sculptures are now preserved in the collec-tion of the Hungarian Nacollec-tional Gallery. I’m contributing now as co-author also to the plaque for painter Tamás Lossonczy with sculptress Magda Gádor.
These works require a lot of time and energy which, however, do not distract me from achieving my goals. They fascinate me, engage my interest and professionally devel-op me. I understand my fellow-artist’s thoughts and expressions and I can also add something to their art in my way.
How do you find time for your own sculptures then? Can you work on your own pieces as well?
Let me share with you some workshop secrets of a sculpture I’m working on currently.
I carved a crystal-shaped structure upon the surface of a piece of limestone. This is namely the beginning of a series called ’Snow Crystals’. The snow crystal is a beau-tiful and inimitable form, to which a technique I developed is perfectly applicable. In terms of symbolism it is an ancient Hungarian and Romani sun symbol, but as the snow crystal basically is a frozen drop of water, the sun and the fire are symbolically also related to water. Moreover, having a hexagonal crystal structure, the equilateral triangles of the Star of David appear in them.
In the process I cover the negative forms, that is, the contours of the crystal with neutralising wax alloy and the rest will be destructed by hydrochloric acid. This will add to the work a very interesting crystalline effect. This is a method I invented and,
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I call it ’controlled destruction’. In the case of this sculpture I chose the methodology to hit the material’s limits by creating a really thin carved plate. The crystal structure emerges from this destructed plate which suggests a floating feel after the controlled destructive process. This way I create a sculpted white surface, while upon the deep-est areas I achieve a darker, ddeep-estructed but shiny one. Acidic ddeep-estruction is an an-cient technology, but I do not really know anyone among Hungarian artists who use it.
During my travels I saw using it in many places, such as in Italy where I learnt how to apply it for sanding areas where the human hand and the machines have difficulties to access to.
These stones reflect your art. But how did you actually become an artist?
At the beginning, my father protested against my artistic career, because he thinks you can’t make a living of it. My mother supported me in it as she was working at the Hungarian State Opera House as an opera singer and now she is retired after 25 years of service. She motivated me to learn playing the guitar and having a band because at that time I thought I was going to make a living from music. Then a career in painting attracted me – I drew, I painted a lot. I tried to train myself. I was lucky, because I had a friend on the hill, living in our neighbourhood, György Várkonyi, who is a very talented graphic designer, and he gave me lessons.
After graduation, I wanted to apply to the training school for the University of Fine Arts’ painting and restoration faculty, but in that year such training was not started. I was very disappointed because I was already 22 years old. Again my mother helped, and brought a career guide book. We sat down to look at, which were the places where I could learn fine arts in our city. Together, we found the school in which I was able to learn without having to repeat study years I already had absolved, and could enjoy it as well. This was the Secondary Vocational School for Fine and Applied Arts and Construction in Várna Street. I could only get in to the ’stone carver’ or to the the
’ornamental sculptor’ classes. I was not interested in plaster, so I chose stone carv-ing. There was a showroom in the building where you could see the works made by the students and instinctively I said I wanted to be a stone carver.
Since I already had a general certificate of education, in the first year (in 1994–95) I could keep myself busy with stone carving only. I carved five days a week. In one year, I gained more practice than a trainee in our school within three years, since my
60 white marble from Italy Private collection, Budapest
Reguläre Sonne Weißer Marmor aus Italien
gemeißelt und geschliffen Privatsammlung, Budapest
mates had also to pursue their studies. I went there to learn how to carve, that was my goal.
Sometimes you need luck in your life. After my first year at school a two-years-long stone sculptor training was launched. I signed up immediately and was accepted. I studied drawing, modelling, folk art and art history. While in the first year we were taught only the properties of the stone, the stone types and their shaping, in the fol-lowing two years art subjects filled me with growing excitement. At that time I began to develop my artistic thinking, visualization. Looking back, I feel it is a huge advan-tage having learnt the stone cutter job in a professional level.
Who were your masters at this time?
One of my teachers was Sándor Nagy – he was also called Master N. S. –, a brilliant professional. Unfortunately he is not very well known by the general public, he is very modest and he was a student of sculptor Pál Kő. I learned from him how to model a nude, a head. My exam was a portray I made of the master’s mother. I casted it in plaster and then carved it in red limestone from Tardos in the workshop. This was the time when I learned how to use the puncturing machine.
My other master was István Gazdig. He had taught me previously, so he knew my ca-pabilities and technical skills. Therefore I was given more complex tasks in sculpture than my classmates.
How were you living at this time?
Every weekend, since my parents could not provide financial support, I had to work.
I travelled to Sárbogárd, where I found work at Péter Huszár. Fortunately, he also had some inclination for sculpture. In his workshop I carved a famous sculptor’s com-position entitled ’Seal’, and I also worked on several nude statues designed by him.
Huszár finally graduated in Pécs as an art teacher, and he influenced me to engage myself with sculpture. At that time, I travelled a lot by train and taking advantage of this opportunity I read a number of biographies of artists. It made me realize how much can be understood from the life of other artists.
At this time I started to try to find out how I could sell my work. When I prepared my first piece – I think it was in 1995 –, which today I would not list as a sculpture: a densely ornate capital with four heads of two men and two women connected with
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acanthus leaves. We put it in my brother’s old car and went to Munich. Somehow I was sure I could sell that. I looked up the city’s most exclusive gallery on Ludwig-straße, the Rutzmoser Gallery. We asked the gallery manager to take a look at the statue right in the street. He was a particular character with a huge scruffy hair, and was riding an odd bike. We opened the boot, just like the street vendors usually showing off their wares. He looked up and asked about the price... I said bashfully one thousand German marks. He immediately asked back. ‘Ten thousand? A little too much’ – he said, and offered five thousand instead. This misunderstanding was very favourable for me. We stayed in contact, but later I went in a different direction, I changed my art and I wasn’t able to accommodate his needs anymore.
What a small world! István Mácsai told me about Rutzmoser, that he was deal-ing with his paintdeal-ings, sold them, so he often visited him. At one such occasion he asked Mácsai to paint a full-length portrait of him. The master has done it, and he entitled it ‘The Art Dealer’. For some reason the picture did never get to Rutzmoser. At that time I was editing a monograph of Mácsai’s oeuvre and I met him several times. We talked a lot, and one time he showed me the painting
‘The Art Dealer’, but instead of Rutzmoser’s face he featured my lineament in the portrait. Now, going back to school...
After finishing school I applied twice for admission to the University of Fine Arts. I did not get in. I noticed that my file was not even opened. I was sure, they didn’t want me.
I was forced to look for work, and found a job in a stone carving workshop, where they promised me they would give me stone sculpturing work. When I got there, it was only a stone cutter job, but finally, it was OK. Now it is very handy and facilitates my creative job that I have learned how to carve counters and tombstones and other stone carving tasks. But I had to beg for the payment at the end of each month. I did not like it and since my brother had been working in Germany for a long time, I went there to take my chance.
I took with me my best reference photos, and I was hired at the first try to a well-known stone cutting company of high reputation. My new colleagues quickly realized that everything can be left on to me, since I had no mood, nor money to spend time with them in the cafeteria, where in addition I didn’t understand much their conver-sations. They knew very well when the boss would arrive, so I was left to work alone
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with all those excellent tools and they reported their working time according to the norm. At first this annoyed me, but then I accepted it, because if I reported my per-formance they would have been dismissed before long. But this way they quickly accepted me. I could not stay more than three years in Germany, since this was the officially permitted period of stay, so the encouragement from my friends to try again an entrance exam to the university came in the right time. I was taken, and along with my colleague, Judit Rabóczky we were among the first candidates to get into the Sculpture Department.
What did the university, your teachers, your classmates mean to you? Have you made life-long friendships?
University years were decisive in my life. As long as one is not taken to this college and is not part of this unique environment, did not walk at least once under its leafy trees, can not be able to understand what the Epreskert means; an oasis in a won-derful environment. It is beautiful not only in summer but also in winter. Although it is situated in the middle of the city, it is just like an island, full of mulberry trees, this is where its name is coming from. At that time it was prohibited to cook brandy, never-theless we commonly harvested the mulberries, and cooked it in our workshop. We, sculptors never fitted into our skin and repeatedly slaughtered pigs, sometimes even goats or sheep in the garden.
Where did you get the animals?
It was very well organized. We had folks from the countryside, and some came from Transylvania, who kept animals at home and it was not a problem for them to bring one. They knew how to slaughter and prepare those animals and make those deli-cious dishes.
We are indebted to sculptor Alajos Stróbl, he had acquisited the area. Bertalan Szé- kely and Károly Lotz, painters founded the National Drawing School and later Alajos Stróbl joined them as a sculptor. He bought the property at that time and built a small paradise for himself. His late studio is now turned into an exhibition centre, which is named after the recently deceased master, Tamás Körösényi. This room, which is a very well proportioned one, now gives place to exhibitions of sculptors. When one of our sculptor friends presented his works we celebrated the event with a wine dinner
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travertine limestone from Süttő Geschliffenes Blumenblatt Travertin Kalkstei aus Süttő gemeißelt und geschliffen
combined with a pig slaughter. Our friends from the Intermedia Department filmed and documented these events. The party was usually held at the backside of the park, by the sculptor studios, our masters came along, and also the painters.
Otherwise, I spent one additional year at the Epreskert, because my master, Ádám Farkas nominated me to lead a working group of sculptors to carve four monumen-tal female figures to the entrance of the Technical University in Budapest, while my colleague, Botond Polgár was responsible for the patterning. Only the two of us were given this assignment. Very few people knew about it, because, unfortunately no documentation had been made of the work. Our professor asked us in secret to put together the final team of eight people, since it was such a huge work that at least two people were needed by sculptures: one for the patterns and one professional sculp-tor. Since we could choose from our friends and our colleagues, we decided to forget hierarchy. The fact that I was chosen by the master as the manager of this project was a great honour to me. Not only our workload was taken into account when he select-ed us, but also the fact that everybody had to be very reliable since the time we had compared to the quantity of work was very short, less than one year was disposable.
We worked on monumental statues, of the same volume and size as an Egyptian one; together with their pedestal their total height reached more than 5 meters. The four statues which were symbolizing the four faculties of the Technical University we executed in goups of two. They had been carved between 1906 and 1908 by sculp-tor Károly Senyei. Only two weak A/4 photos were available for us of their original state, since the statues were destroyed completely during the Second World War.
The sculptures, these huge masses of stones served as cover for the German or Rus-sian firing line. By the end of the war the statues were completely smashed.
Research work was shared between the University of Technology and our university, however, we had to create the sculptures.
What kind of expectations did you have when you started your university studies?
There were few masters from whom one could learn really. However, there were those who had a passion for teaching, putting even their own sculptural art aside for a while.
They invested a lot of effort in us and it was important for them to share their knowl-edge. For example Zoltán Karmó, who is now Head of the Sculpture Department, he took over the position after Tamás Körösényi’s death. I was lucky, I could attend his
68 white marble from Italy
Reszegi Collection Weiße Sonne Weißer Marmor aus Italien
gemeißelt und geschliffen Sammlung Reszegi
courses because he led the first foundation year. My master was Ádám Farkas – what I learned from him will accompany me for a lifetime.
I am also thankful for having classmates as Judit Rabóczky, Attila Rajcsók and Tamás Komlovszky-Szvet to name just a few.
At university I found myself in a privileged position, since my good old friends, such as sculptor Imre Elek, who had been accepted earlier, that is 6-7 years before, were still there. They did not pass their MFA yet and were enjoying the beneficent environ-ment of the university and were working together with us. They accepted me into the distinguished company of graduates where otherwise greens could not have been
At university I found myself in a privileged position, since my good old friends, such as sculptor Imre Elek, who had been accepted earlier, that is 6-7 years before, were still there. They did not pass their MFA yet and were enjoying the beneficent environ-ment of the university and were working together with us. They accepted me into the distinguished company of graduates where otherwise greens could not have been