Category Archives: sculpture

HMC’s Library Thoughts 2

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Detail, Traveler’s cup 2

This diverse collection of artwork, often related to book arts or Budapest, come from artists all over the world. The Hungarian Multicultural Center’s “Library Thoughts 2” is up at MAGYAR ÍRÓSZÖVETSÉG at Bajza utca 18 in Budapest through September 28. Relating to foreigners’ interactions and reactions to a city that is new to me as well, I enjoyed seeing how others interpreted their experiences. The photograph above shows a statue of St. Stephen (Istvan) on Fisherman’s Bastion, which is on the Buda hills overlooking the Danube and Pest, in the background.

Joo Yean Woo, Traveler’s cup (1, 2, and 3)

Joo Yean Woo’s photographs are meant to examine how the act of collecting can be a more creative process, documenting and archiving experience in a more personal way. Perhaps a good thing for me to be thinking about during my time here.

Xu Yun, Homage to Franz Liszt

Detail, Homage to Franz Liszt

Two other works I liked, Xu Yun’s installation and Marlene Alt’s series of Baroque medallions, responded to Budapest’s Baroque heritage. Homage to Franz Liszt hangs from an ornate chandelier. The transparent sheets feature Liszt’s music as well as the decorative emblem of Hungary, what might be thought of as quintessentially Hungarian symbols, while Alt’s blank clay tiles in different colors have their gilt rubbed off much the way buildings here show their age. They deal with a long artistic heritage, as the title Portraits, Nudes, Heaven, Earth suggests, and refer to the opulent frames that usually hold traditional works of art.

 

Marlene Alt, Portraits, Nudes, Heaven, Earth

 

 

Ken Price’s “naturally erotic forms”

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Clay sculpture glazed or painted in a melange of color. While they may be “naturally erotic forms,” they remain firmly abstract. I found the colors of the speckled surface and the undulating curves much more playful and visually interesting than his flat drawings and prints on the wall.
The marbled surface of this reminds me ancient Roman pottery, but the colors are closer to neon and the material effect plasticy. This surreal disconnect and the lumpy shapes creates a disquieting secondary reaction to what seems innocent enough at first glance.

Christopher Russell: Obelisks and One Perturbed Bird

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Christopher Russell creates stone objects, like these inspired by European decorative arts, at Julie Saul Gallery at Pulse this past March. Objects like obelisks and flora in celadon create a neo-Baroque cornucopia. Altogether though, it creates a dinner setting where nobody gets to eat rather than the accouterments to a 17th c. feast somewhere in the Hapsburg empire. Which rather has me thinking how much fun it would be to decorate an Absurdist neo-Baroque environment in an authentically Baroque palace?