Sculptures and artist books

Győző Sárkány’s works stepping out into space were called to life by his peculiar view of space and his plastic drawings or paintings in an almost adequate way. His desire for colours and the need for an object that fills space and takes possession of it meet in his sculptural works, which are more than just spatial paintings. The boundaries between genres are also blurred, as in these works he combines traditional sculptural processes not only with painterly surfaces, but also with the genres of installation, environment or object. His cylindrical sculptures resemble advertising columns with posters glued together in layers and torn apart, while his ashlar objects resemble crumbling plaster walls covered with advertisements, personal or public messages, or painted over.

All his spatial works carry information and messages. In this sense, they are also linked to books, whose pages, folded out into space, are also projected with ideas. In his space sculptures and artist’s books, visual messages appear both on the columns and on the sculptures imitating brick walls, as well as on book-shaped objects. He sometimes incorporates his own graphic works into the rustic surfaces in a collage-like manner, thus crossing another genre boundary. These spatial works, like sculptures in general, can be walked around and interpreted from multiple perspectives. He makes the most of this by shaping the surface of the works, which he makes even more exciting with layered factures.

Placed in space, the finished works themselves rearrange their surroundings, not only claiming space but also creating space around themselves. Through his sculptures and artist’s books, Győző Sárkány creates relations that vary according to the connections between the sculptures and the audience, but are essentially defined by the works.

Judit Szeifert art historian