BENCE MAGYARLAKI
OUTSIDE BELONGINGS
In this sculpture series developed at Third Base Residency, Lisbon, I aim to achieve the subjectification of objects by manipulating geometric forms and twisting them towards anthropomorphic postures. The action thus performed by the object can be a bend, a stretch, a twist always suggesting the tensile force of the outside, and a futurity towards rupture or release. The sculptures therefore encapsulate a fragile moment within a movement that reveals the very ability of a material to be shaped without breaking. In such stillness - or momentum - an inherent performative language is teased out of the objects, dictated by their own ductility.
My aim , is to re-constitute sculpture as a social object, as vessel of communication that is intercorporeal. By manipulating everyday found material such as the sponge arm of an armchair or the mattress from a bed, I seek to explore their potential as articulations of a social body that reproduces, bends, and distorts schemes of relatedness and power relations that structure the external world. My base materials for making these sculptures are always found in the locality of my studio. The found object is important in this process, bringing personal and yet universally understood stories of intimacy that will then be encapsulated by hard casting materials that I use for sculpting. This way the sculptures create a strong connection to the language of architecture. Made out of plaster and concrete, the surface of these sculptures reference the intimacy of the architectural womb that surrounds our contemporary living space.
Through a gestural language, the sculptures carry immediate, embodied meanings that are grounded in transactions of body-world, that are pre-linguistic, emotional and are based in body movement. The stillness of these sculptures is not to represent a static structure, rather a dynamic capacity for movement through which we as social bodies engage with the world. The sculptural body thus becomes subject-body, it possess curves, crevices, folds that are mimetic of the human body. This resemblance, however, is not to be regarded as a pleasing mirroring effect. Rather, their features and stance demand that the viewer to reposition themselves in relation to it and question societal structures that construct and police their own desires and identities. These sculptures are to be read with tactility, as a means of human communication that in our contemporary technological time I wish to reinstate as an intercorporeal affair.
N°4
I slide between
Two fingers
Still
(to be)
Plaster, synthetic pigment
polyurethane foam, resin
45x45x40cm
N°1
I lay you out
I hung you down
I / You
(to cut)
Plaster, resin, string
polyurethane foam
90x90x130cm
N°3
Bend
Your wall
My spine
Remembers
(to hold)
Plaster, synthetic pigment
polyurethane foam, resin
60x60x70cm
N°2
We split
We open
We point
(to multiply)
Plaster, synthetic pigment
polyurethane foam, resin
9x11x130cm
N°6
How I remember
Twisted
To belong
Outside
Plaster, resin, string
polyurethane foam
60x45x40cm
