András Bojti
Another world –
universal harmony projected onto the Earth
A glass sculptor, spatial designer and film maker – specific and abstract, but above all complex – András Bojti uses glass and corten and stainless steel to shape the void, demonstrating the spatial experience with the subdivision of emptiness. And to make it complete, he assigns to it the preserve of the living: motion, which the installation captures virtually, but all the more poignantly in its illusory nature.
A person stepping into his space continues their journey while at the same time arriving – in his own internal terra incognita, barely perceptible to others, which has been tamed, transformed into a friendly place by the artist, and also by us with his help, as if at the wave of a wand.
Regardless of whether we examine his works designed individually or in collaboration with architects, the spirit of the place, and the elevated nature bestowed on it, is present in all of his works, not only those created specifically for sites of religious significance.(1) Bojti works in the space close to the Earth’s surface because he, too, is unable to physically reach out and touch the intangible (space); but he can nevertheless overcome this hiatus by eliminating the boundaries – by blurring them, or perhaps by extending their presence (importance) in space, and also in time, by giving prominence to the places between the bordered areas.
This change of scale requires a mechanism for eliminating borders that has an absolute value. To this end, in his creative process, Bojti steps beyond the material: he sets sail,(2) builds virtual bridges,(3) imitates flying(4) – in a medium where these, at best, are regarded as a means to an end – or installs a whole paradise.(5) Even his works cast from steel are transparent, almost incorporeal works of art, which self-evidently blend in with the space around them, and which we experience as a natural part of the environment. You don’t need to accept the work, because the work itself accepts us.
The complexity of the work, and its clean lines, make it possible to map out areas with corners that we do not often visit or look into – in the first instance, the artist quite simply turns concave into convex. However, in order for what he presents as a gift to be not only spherical, but geoidal, he pulls us into a subsequent dimension through the appropriately structured forms and systematically used paths of natural and artificial light. To a place where the precision-engineered directions, bare lines, specified thicknesses, sharply defined degrees of hardness and angles (of tilt), the glass and metal, are sometimes accompanied by unexpectedly soft formations, thus inserting a measure of human fallibility into the work. All this, sometimes in a system of relationships created through the catalytic use of water, as the liquid alter-ego of glass, leads us to a different kind of world. Not to the transcendent, but to its ante-chamber, to a place where the material and the ethereal come and go, and can easily meet.
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András Bojti has exhibited his works in Germany(6) and the United States,(5) and designed in Thailand(7) and South Africa;(8) but his creations are also found in many locations here in Hungary: in public spaces,(9) and in the buildings – and sometimes even the industrial facilities – of local and international companies,(10) as well as in private homes and their surroundings.
The Another World exhibition primarily introduces us to András Bojti’s latest steel spatial sculptures. The installation reveals a meditative sculptural world, showing the stages in the shift towards the ethereal, the transcendent. By transforming the whole exhibition space into a sculpture, with outlines evocative of natural forms, he tips the spirit and soul of the viewer stepping into the room out of reality, and towards an ethereal world beyond it. Bojti talks about his ensemble of reflections, refractions, cast shadows, layers, walls connected by glass bridges, as the evidence of a world in which technology and meditation are able coexist, and indeed complement each other. A world in which humanity is reality.
Szilvia Reischl, curator of the exhibition
(1) Tabernacle, Szent Kereszt Church, Budapest, 2001
(2) Sail, MKB Office Building, Budapest, 2006
(3) Virtual Bridge, International Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, Nuremberg, Germany, 2003
(4) Flight, SKANSKA Office Building, Budapest, 2005
(5) Paradise, Triangle Arts Association Workshop, New York, USA, 2006
(6) Gates of the Mission, Glass statue in the garden – Second prize at the 4th International Exhibition, Munster, Germany, 2002
(7) Special Award-winning design for the Tsunami International Memorial and Architecture competition, Bangkok, Thailand, 2005
(8) Design for Freedom Park and Place of Remembrance, Pretoria, South Africa, 2003
(9) Hommage à Janáky, recreation park, Hódmezővásárhely, 2015; Wandering Dots, New Main Street Programme, Egyetem Square, Budapest, 2010; Vents glass and chrome spatial sculptures, Kálvin tér station of Metro line 4, Budapest, 2013; Glass Blades, reconstruction of Zrínyi Street, Hódmezővásárhely, 2010; GANZ Whistles, Millenáris Park, Budapest, 2002
(10) Reception area, Sauflon Ltd., with Földes Architectural Studio, Gyál, 2013; Reception area, CooperVision, with Földes Architectural Studio, Gyál, 2015