Ván Hajnalka (szerk.): Bepillantás a kintbe. Kolozsváry-Stupler Éva művészete - Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum Közleményei 9. (Békéscsaba, 2017)
Ván Hajnalka: Bepillatnás a kintbe
25 visited by his friends, talked to local artists, met his muse and love, Suzy, and soon we called him Tibor. When I talked about him, I said Tibor, and I got so close to his life-work that I could talk about him with Eva as if we had common experiences. Then, there are trips we had together. To the house of Eva and Paul, to exhibitions, to see the studios, works, to admire the wonderful panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean from their garden and to indulge in the feeling that there is nothing more inspiring than nature. And another experience. I can still recall where I was standing in Eva’ studio in the spring of 1995 when she put a CD into the player saying that she could only work by listening to music. It was a piece of music by Bach: Dos Wohltemperierte Klavier, an e-moll prelude from the first book. The music is beautiful, performed by any musician in any performance, but this one sounded really modern in the studio bathing in sunshine. It was modern, a bit cooler, in a swing-like tempo and the sound of the piano was mixed jazzy. Later, it turned out that it was one of the Bach CDs of John Lewis who is an excellent jazz-pianist (Preludes and Fugues from the Well-tempered Clavier Book 1. volume 3. Philips, 1984). Eva gave me that CD right away. And the kind of music that evokes the same in me whenever I hear it is very rare in my life. Well, John Lewis's Bach CD is like that, and it always makes me remember that nice spring afternoon in Eva’s studio. The studio, sunshine, the works, and of course, the insolvably exciting experience, that anytime I listen to this music, I will never hear it for the first time. The musical experience was made unforgettable by the circumstances of its first hearing. I try to find my memories, and I try to assemble them as Eva rearranges her found objects. We do not know yet when that hair-drier transforms into a part of work, and I have not either known until this time when that hair-drier becomes an essential part of my montage of memories. Yes, the hair-drier. I had never seen such an enthusiast as Eva when she heard that somewhere in the city there was a garage-sale, that is the last act when selling off a house, flat or home: offering for sale those things nobody needs, normally in the garage. We browsed the belongings thrown out. They were cheap things, and at that time I did not understand why Eva visits these places. They lived in a beautiful house, had everything in their household they needed, and I realized just later that Eva does not search for everyday objects, but Objects and things inside which some life still flickers before they finally get to the garbage can. We had been waiting for her in the car for a long time, and at last we glimpsed her face beaming with joy: she had purchased an old hair-drier. One dollar or two, and as usual, she had even bargained for it. But she had saved an object. A soul. From damnation, from the grinder of the garbage truck. And she revived it within the life of a work. I have just understood the relationship between the Kolosvarys and Jankay. It was a frendship of relatives, siblings where not only Tibor Jankay, the man, the person of the Hungarian artist, who emigrated from Békéscsaba, remembered the same things and could not leave behind his roots, was important, but Tibor’s objects as well. The house in the deserted street of Canyon Avenue, the knick-knacks, the souvenirs, collected from here and there, which Jankay also arranged in picturesque groups. A nearly magical love of objects characterizes not only Eva’s works and artistic attitude, but between Eva Kolosvary and Tibor Jankay also the
