9 June – 2 September 2018

VENUE: Kmetty Museum
CURATOR: Dalma Eged

Transylvanian artist Zsolt Berszán (1974) made his Hungarian debut in 2010, when he had a solo show at the MODEM. He has also exhibited at the Műcsarnok / Kunsthalle Budapest, the ArtMill, and the Vajda Museum. For the past decade, his objects made of silicone have been characterized by the emphatic use of the colour black. In his works, the human being plays the leading role, but not as an all-conquering spiritual and intellectual principle: as a creature made from flesh, organs and cells, who is doomed to decomposition and exists at the mercy of time – in contrast to silicon compounds whose “life expectancy” exceeds the span of a human lifetime many times over.
His site specific works on display at the exhibition turn away from the exclusive use of black that is otherwise so characteristic of Zsolt Berszán’s art. The works made of bright red and black silicone, which have been placed among the plants in the garden of the Kmetty Museum, stand like unassailable obstacles in the way of nature. The passivity of the sculptures made from a material that is indifferent to climactic conditions and physiological factors calls attention to the unequal playing field between organic and inorganic existence. The inhabitants of Berszán’s garden – a life-size flesh eating plant, a parasite protruding from a living tree, and a table bearing haphazardly placed organs – raise questions from the perspective of silicone-based existence about the relationship between nature and its domesticator, the human being, as an organic life form and culture-creating being.