Ván Hajnalka (szerk.): Bepillantás a kintbe. Kolozsváry-Stupler Éva művészete - Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum Közleményei 9. (Békéscsaba, 2017)
Ván Hajnalka: Bepillatnás a kintbe
33 quently. The American, Joseph Cornell, who was one of the first and most outstanding figures of ’box art’, made works arranged in boxes he built from found objects in the 1950s. Considered as a precursor, he already had creative work in the golden age of Surrealism, and reinterpreting this style, he transmitted it to the second half of the century. Marcel Duchamp, who turns up previous to Surrealism as a Dada artist, also had a great influence on art in the second half of the century. His importance lies in the fact that he transformed concept of art by elevating the idea and use of ready-made objects into the realm of art. This is the approach that had a decisive role in founding Assemblage as an independent art form. “We got acquainted with Dada in Zurich, where it originated, and which I found very strange at first. I began to appreciate it much later, and I also discovered many interesting things in everyday objects.” Breaking the rules and opposing the traditions are ostensible at the followers of this style, since they do know the history of art very well, and are full of humble respect for the masters. However, the best of them tend to be innovative and have a sensitive talent for development. In Kolosvary-Stupler’s Expect a Miracle, angel figures known from the sacral works of the early Christian and later ages also appear. At the same time, she makes use of the avant-garde device of composing texts into the pictures which creates the title. She uses this method in numerous cases, making her works vocal. However, this really clear-cut work cannot be understood easily since it does not help answer the simple and assuring question of where we are. Inside or outside? Or what counts to be inside and outside? For Eva and her first husband, Paul Kolosvary, the geographical positioning of inside and outside was considered to be not only an intellectual game, but a matter of life and death. The issue of being parted, or being at home on a different continent, confronted the artist at an early age. "From the beginning of my life, I have felt outside, first, because of my Jewish origin, and later because I was called a capitalist. Arriving in the United States, these fears ceased, I belonged to nowhere, I was classified by nobody. Later, when I got to college and learned ceramics, I really enjoyed the constant changes of clay in my hands, which started outside, then got inside. And my ceramic works well-reflected this. I later shifted my creative outlet to creating etchings for many years. Many of my etchings made me deal with what was inside me and its influence on me.” In the case of assemblages made into box-spaces in the first decade, which function as pictures and are meant to be viewed from one point of view, inside and outside are still well separated. Even though we view the works from outside, a flip appears in some works such as California Gothic, created in 1993. In Eve and Adam, the body and the soul of the main figures, emphasizing their sex, reveal themselves in front of the spectators. Due to a freer view of life, in later works Eva Kolosvary-Stupler stopped composing in boxes. However, she kept this method for sacral works, where the organizing principle in the form of an altar remained. In these cases it can be single, (American Avatar, 2000; Nativity, 2001); or diptych (Two Worlds, 2003; Two Times, 2007) or have a triptych-like base. We can see the found object having advanced along the conveyor
