CerModern in Ankara hosted an exhibition of the MNB’s collection – curated by Gábor Rieder – entitled Gut Feeling & Software Grammar. Among others, Nikolett Balázs was present with one of the most important works of her career, which is part of the Central Bank’s collection. We spoke with her about her experiences abroad, her working methods and her relationship to art.
Tell us a bit about your artwork entitled Mantle / Palást– what inspired it, how was it made and why do you think it is important?
Several of my works have been included in the MNB’s collection. As in the case of other artists, MNB purchased a representative collection from me. The Mantle is a large-scale installation, probably my largest spatial installation, which is a hanging work of art. Fortunately, we were able to suspend it from the ceiling into the space at the exhibition in Turkey.
It is my favourite piece in the collection because it marks the beginning of a new era, and my current work is inspired by it. This is my only work that is made entirely of textiles, all the others are mixed media. I was happy that I was able to achieve everything I wanted out of one single material, because I usually mould a heterogeneous collection of materials with different qualities and meanings into a single work of art. I usually base my creations on the interaction and coexistence of different materials, this is what triggers my creativity, but in this textile work, it is only the shapes and colours that express everything.
The last time we met, you were about to travel to Chile as a guest of the SACO Contemporary Art Biennial, from where you flew directly to New York because you had been awarded a Visegrad Fund scholarship. I imagine you were strongly influenced by these two “adventures”. How can you sum up their essence?
In Chile, I was the first Hungarian invited artist to participate in the SACO Biennial. When I was a finalist for the Leopold Bloom Award, the international jury came to visit my studio. It was there that the director of the Chile Biennial noticed me and later invited me. His curatorial concept was about relations to power and oppression, but he wasn’t looking for straightforward political work – I also like my work to have many readings. I had little time; I had to create an artwork on the spot within eight days. In Chile, I also created a hanging work, a sculptural installation, so to speak: I hung up the body-like, yet non-figurative, shapes made of textile, in the same way as meat or half pigs are. Textile is an easy material, it can be worked with quickly, can be dyed, stiffened or filled. There were also practical reasons for my choice, I couldn’t ship the material out of Hungary because of the costs, it had to be completed fast, I couldn’t bring it home, so textile felt right. I was afraid of having to manage without the support of a gallery, but I suceeded in the end.
I went to New York through the Visegrad Fund Residency programme. I was seeking inspiration and a change of scale from this scholarship, and I was not disappointed, I got just that.
It must have taken courage. Is it like you to be courageous?
Yes, you have to be brave, because if you don’t have that, you have nothing. I don’t have a gallery behind me, or a wealthy family or sponsors, but I’ve experienced since childhood that if you have the courage to start, it works out.
The same question applies symbolically as well, because in art too, you need courage to go for the new, the unusual. What does having courage in art mean to you?
Come what may, you have to be able to overwrite any particular era, period. That is the basic attitude in studio work, and I think itis true for career moves as well, especially if you’re planning for the long term. Going forward bravely, making personal connections, being open to the world, towards people.
For a long time, the respect for tradition was a strong motivation in the art world, and the master-student relationship determined many things. What is your opinion about this?
I owe a great deal to the masters, teachers and the artists whose work has seriously influenced me, but I find the rebellious approach more liberating. I do not fit into any hierarchical approach. I was always searching for my place at university, I often felt that I couldn’t fit in, and as the environment changed around me after graduation and as I faced an increasing number of alternative options, my approach and artistic attitude evolved. I wanted to try a variety of artistic positions, as I didn’t feel mature at the time. But I wanted to do it, to practise, to show myself – and luckily, I had the opportunity to do so, because alternative routes were emerging: Instagram was taking off, internationalisation was happening, and some of my young colleagues were reaching huge success from nothing, right before my eyes. Moreover, these were people about whom they’d said that their work was not good, there would be no place for them, but our old patterns were squarely overwritten. It was inspiring and liberating to experience this, and I felt encouraged to try and accomplish what I had planned.
You studied painting, and now we are sitting here in your studio surrounded by various materials and textile works. Now that we’re speaking of rebellion, can you tell us a little bit about that journey, how did you get here?
These boundaries between genres dissolved after university. At the beginning of my studies, I was fine with painting, but for my diploma project I was already cutting up my canvases and started playing with space. Even though I was still working more in a plane, I had almost imperceptibly crossed over into spatiality. While at university, I didn’t go to the sculpture department to peer into their work, I wasn’t particularly interested. The whole process took place after graduation.
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Was spatiality itself the first step, or was it the canvas as a material that interested you? Did it have any significance that your mother was a seamstress?
Yes, of course, my relationship with materials is influenced by the fact that my mother sewed, but actually everyone in my family is involved in some kind of DIY at home, everyone has a shed, rural crafting and bricolage has always been present in my life. Maybe the process is more closely connected to the time when I started collecting used objects, looking for all kinds of things at home to use as materials, and I liked their spatial arrangement. But my artwork still hangs on walls, few of them function as sculptures or installations in space. My journey towards sculpture is still an ongoing process.
How important is feedback to you? From what you’ve told me so far, you seem to go ahead on your journey, initiating processes, experimenting, even when you are surrounded by a less supportive external environment. Taking part in competitions – whether it’s a prize or a scholarship – is a sign of confidence. How do you build and maintain your self-confidence, which is a prerequisite for creating?
I promised myself that I would be happy with the creative process itself, just by being able to create something makes me richer. The very fact that someone rents a studio, buys the materials, devotes time to creating and tries to improve is a great achievement in itself. When works are alternating in the studio at a healthy pace, and finished pieces find the right places, in important collections, it’s a boost that gives a big impetus. This gives me feedback that I am not only doing this for myself, but also that the artworks begin to communicate in their new environs. The energy that other people bring with them can really liven it up, and it’s nice to know that I’m not alone with my work.
I believe in myself, in the materials, and that whenever I start something, the material reacts, and, in turn, I react to it, and through the process something gradually emerges – either from my subconscious or from some other deeper layer.
Let’s talk some more about Chile and New York, because these are two places that I think must have given you loads of energy. How was the biennial experience?
I received all kinds of unexpected help, but first, I had to learn to ask for it. I put up an Instagram post, and people I didn’t even know were interested in fine art sent me support. The biennial organisers bought my plane ticket and provided me with a Chilean assistant. It was the first time in my life that I worked with an assistant, so I had to figure out the dynamics of working together.
I spent a month in Chile, mostly with intense work. Many circumstances only became clear there on sight, which of course altered my initial plans. For example, I worked with local materials, I painted with the sand of the Atakama desert, the textiles we collected came from the local town. As we explored the themes of the biennial with the artists and curators, a very intimate atmosphere developed. The relationship to art is different there, the get-togethers – the opening ceremony counts as one – are more pronounced than in Hungary. They pay attention to the work, but it’s even more important for art to bring people together: we hang out together, have dinner, talk about the artworks in the exhibition space. At the opening, the artists also talk about their work, it’s somehow more emotional, more intimate.
What has this experience given you, what was your takeaway?
A whole lot. For example, that I can do anything, or that there are multiple perspectives. In Chile, the art establishment is not as mature as in Europe, and I felt the fire, the raw power, the determination to build something from scratch, I really liked that. And also, how deeply the art of their ancestors is present in their everyday lives. It has become clear to me that our life here in Europe is in a privileged bubble, an oasis. In Chile, both in the desert and on the ocean coast, I saw extremely difficult life conditions, radical situations. Chile can be very dangerous, as a non-Spanish speaking white woman I clarly felt the lack of respect and security, so I never walked alone.
In Chile, the institutional system is still in the process of being built, but from there, you flew to New York, one of the world’s most important if not the most important art centres. It’s as if you were in two complementary or reflective locations. What did the New York scholarship give you?
It was an extremely severe transition, but it was nice to arrive in New York because it reminded me more of the world I knew. There weren’t many compulsory responsibilities, I had more time, I could do my things at my own pace. I was able to experience freedom and that I can be anyone, I can do anything. They wanted to support me, and they were not aiming to find my mistakes. I was provided with a studio and I was able to bring small pieces of my large installation from Chile and work on them. Visiting galleries and institutions, attending lectures and events as part of the International Studio and Curatorial Program, I was surprised to see the strong return to painting in commercial galleries. It was shocking to see the huge disparity between different levels of society, to see the degree of wealth and poverty that exist at the same time. New York forces you to be purposeful, to focus on your own things.
How do you relate to painting now?
I might double back to it, I wouldn’t rule it out, but right now I’m still moving away from it. What I mean is that technically, in the classical sense, I’m not interested in painting, but my thinking is very painter-like, I often compose like a painter.
What are you interested in right now, in terms of techniques or ideas, what’s on your mind?
The poor, dirty materials. I want to show more brutal materials, to show where the value in imperfection lies. There is no human existence without a series of mistakes, but there is also strength and beauty in that. I would like to give a stronger thematic focus to these ideas and not be afraid of new manifestations of forms. Much of my work is half-finished at the moment, I contemplate about them a great deal.
What is value? This question may be of interst also in the sense that you were born between two worlds in 1990. Those who raised you were socialised in an old set of values, but you grew up with a new system. So, what about values?
I grew up in a village and the traumas of the people who lived there were passed on to the next generation in many ways. Socialism has left its marks all over the village, and even I can feel its leftovers on myself. However, there are good things too. To become a visual artist, I need to have the mindset adopted by my grandparents under socialism, which, essentially, I can summarise as: “it will do, we will bother through somehow”, be that as it may, but we must go on. If I had not learnt that, I wouldn’t be here today.
What’s difficult now is that nothing is predictable. There are no fixed values in the present, everything is in transition. There are fixations in our minds, of course, but they transform. We are in transformation, and we are in it after having lived in consistent worlds. This is starting to influence everything as we speak. I learnt back home in the village that when we flood the potato field and trample around in the mud, that is not dirt. Dirt is when something should be clean but it isn’t. The central element of my work can be a dirty rag – an ugly, unnecessary object, which, at the end of the creative process still becomes the most beautiful, most important, part of the artwork. There is always some kind of transformation in my pieces, that is what gives them their value.