ARTIST STATEMENT

The provocative art of Géza Szöllősi sounds a unique voice in the body canon of Hungarian contemporary art, whose reigning discourse is slow to recognise the inevitable decadence of the fin de siécle. His vision integrates more easily into the mainstream current of the international scene, where representatives of earlier generations (Joel-Peter Witkin, Paul McCarthy, Cindy Sherman) already established the malaise and the postmodern tradition of horror culture in the depiction of the body – while on the Budapest scene, only in the early 2000s did a few younger, ambitious artists appear, who, with various devices, drove into flesh, but more deeply than their predecessors. Szöllősi was among them, whose most characteristic and most consistent endeavour was his Flesh project, begun in 2003, in which he sewed together human portraits and sculptures simulating preparations of genitalia, from raw animal meat, mainly from pork and innards. It was not by chance that this project was launched with a self-portrait: “The selfish pleasure one gets from making art is actually a pleasure of being disembodied. While it seems to be the tenure of the artist to express a latent ego, to make it manifest, really, the real condition for that ego in making a work of art is being completely severed: you produce an object which is schizophrenically not you.”2 Upon examining the nature of artistic creation, the Freudian death drive axiom is reinforced (“the aim of all life is death”), as if the artist were working continuously on returning to the inorganic condition, unceasingly producing the objects representing – and outliving – him. The artistic transcendence of the limits of the Ego is a perfect point of departure from death, or in the apprehension of aversion to the innards of our bodies, which we might link to the category of the abject. According to Julia Kristeva, Narcissus is not the unwrinkled image of Greek youth, but abjection is the narcissistic crisis itself, as the image reflected of Narcissus calls forth the splitting of personality, which Nietzsche interpreted as the battle of Apollonian and Dionysian forces. The functional mechanism of Szöllősi’s meat sculptures is inherent in the act of transgression: “There is always a limit, to which the individual conforms, with which he identifies. He catches the loathing with the thought that this limit could disappear”, but it is exactly the fear (horror) that drives the transgression of limits, i.e., the “prohibition is there precisely to be breached.”3 By Kristeva’s definition: “It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection, but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambigous, the composite.(…) Abjection is above all ambiguity.”4 The primary markers of Szöllősi’s works are the anatomy of aversion, in which the breaching of the symbolic order that means security results in the blurring of dichotomies that define our culture at its foundations: the obliteration of the dividing line between the internal/external, living/dead, natural/artificial, and conscious/unconscious, by which the unity of the body and the transcendence of the soul are questioned.

BIOGRAPHY

Géza SzöllősiWebsite: http://www.szollosi.eu/Blog: http://gezaszollosi.blogspot.com/Everything about the Flesh: http://projectflesh.blogspot.hu/Books: http://issuu.com/szollosiVideos: https://vimeo.com/home/myvideosArt direction: http://szollosiartdirector.blogspot.hu/My Pets: http://szollosimypets.blogspot.hu/In books (English)Otto M. Urban: Decadence Now! Visions of Excess, Arbor Vitae publishing, 2010, Prague, pp. 126-127Tibor Gyenes (ed.), Photography in Motion – Contemporary art from Pécs, Alexandra Kiadó, Pécs, 2010, pp. 88-89, 112-113Tibor Werhner (ed.), Modern magyar szobrászat (Modern Hungarian Statuary) 1945-2010, Corvina Kiadó, Budapest, 2010 p. 28József Készman (ed.), Contemporary Hungarian Art at the turn of the Millennium, BumBum Art Consulting, Budapest, 2006, pp. 62-66Lumen Gallery, Budapest, 2005In Catalogue (English)Sándor Hornyik: Deathly Nature, Modem, DebrecenHalasi Rita Mária (ed.), Taste MOMEnts, Moholy-Nagy University of Art, Budapest, 2008Vitek Zsolt (ed.), 52 Contemporary (Hungarian) artists, Vam Design Center, Budapest, 2007, p. 303-313Diploma 2004, Moholy-Nagy University of Art, Budapest, 2004, p. 90Készman József (ed.), The Hidden Holocaust, Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle Budapest), 2004Készman József, László Százados, Plastica Dreams, Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle Budapest), 2003Exhibition review (Hungarian)Bordács, Andrea: Képzőművészet filmben. Új Művészet [Art Today],Vol. XXIV. 2013/10, p. 45-47, BudapestNemes Z., Márió: Budapest Horror, Flash Art, Vol. I., No. 2, 2012, pp. 92, BudapestTünde Topor: Díszletnéző, Art Magazin, Vol. X., No. 1, 2012, p., 42-43, BudapestNemes Z., Márió: Szöllősi Géza és a spirituális pop, Flash Art, Vol. I., No. 2, 2012, pp. 92, Budapest (on the cover: Joseph's libido)Vass, Norbert: Tantrát (t)akaró diktátor-pornó, Új Művészet [Art Today], Vol. XXIII. 2012/4, p. 20-21, BudapestNemes Z., Márió: Antropológiai töredékek, Balkon, Vol. XVIII., No. 2, 2011, pp. 32-36, BudapestSzombathy, Bálint: Baji Miklós és Szöllősi Géza kiállítása, Balkon, Vol. XVIII., No. 1, 2011, p. 40-41, BudapestBordács, Andrea: A természet mint provokáció. Új Művészet [Art Today],Vol. XVIII. 2007/3, p. 21-23, BudapestGyőrffy, László: Eleven hús, Balkon, Vol. XVIII., No. 2, 2007, p. 28-29, BudapestReich, Éva: Körzőgyári cappriccio, Maktár [Hungarian artists Foundation], Vol. III., No. 3, 2007, p. 18-19, BudapestEisenstein, Adele: The diary of a Taxidermist?, The Budapest Sun/Style, No. 2, 2007, BudapestIványi, Brigitta: Minthapornó és művészetzúza, ArtMagazin, Vol. V. No. 1, 2007 p. 52-57, BudapestGyőrffy, László: Project affair, RoHAM Magazine, Vol. II. No.2, 2007, p. 45-47, BudapestRieder, Gábor: Szöllősi Géza és a horror, ArtMagazin, Vol. V., No., 2007, p., BudapestRieder, Gábor: A gumigésa találkozása, ArtMagazin, Vol. IV., No. 1, 2006, p. 30-31, BudapestHock, Bea: Játék és Suzuka tíz percben, Géza Szöllősi Suzuka and her Friends exhibition opening, Menü Pont Gallery, 2006Győrffy, László: Delicatessen, Új Művészet, Vol. XVI., No. 11, 2005, p. 39-40, BudapestInterviews (English)Dora Sarvari, Revista Metal Magazine, The Hungarian Barbarian, New York, Barcelona, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2010, p. 30-33Rebecca Delmenico, Géza Szöllősi, www.rebeccadelmenico.com, 2009Richard Mauger, Q&A, 2009magyar.film.hu, Géza szöllősi, Artist, 2007VideosNew deities in Nextart Gallery Budapest (Hungarian)Decadens Now Exhibition in Prague (English)„Absolút” reporting program (Hungarian)Reporting (Vam Design Center - Budapest) (Hungarian)First Blood - exhibition with BMZ, (Hungarian)Lecture in Pécs University (Hungarian)Exhibition in RoHAM Gallery (Hungarian)