Saly Noémi (szerk.): Gorka Lívia keramikusművész (Budapest, 2010)
Kollin András: Bibliográfia
The Life and Work of Lívia Gorka, Ceramic Artist Lilla Szabó Introduction „The issue of divisibility and indivisibility have accompanied the lives of both myself and my father. Throughout almost 50 years working in the same profession, we both searched for coherency. People may have come and gone around us, but the constant guestion of "yes or no" always remained. The subject, like a hidden stream, connected places and time and tied them to the world which for me once meant that small village between the Danube and the Börzsöny hills, Nógrádverőce" - wrote Lívia Gorka about her father in her memoirs, which appeared in the publication entitled Three Generations.' The text found under the title "Something of Myself", on the question of "Divisible or Indivisible?" and summing up her own life and art, are the most authoritative writings for understanding the art or Lívia Gorka. We can see exactly, that what she tells us about her father’s art and ceramics isn't simply a succession of "reminiscences”, but her own personal artistic credo. Her writings also conjure up images of the spirit of a passed era, and provide both artistic and technical guidance for present and future generations alike. Lívia Gorka has not only changed 20th Century Hungarian ceramic art with her works and endeavours, she has reformed the very concept and meaning of ceramics itself. She has always endeavoured, and she continues to this day, to follow extremely precise rules and definitions, not just with regard to herself and her work with materials, but also in her experiments with various materials, forms and colours. The search for the new has determined the path and direction of her development and experimentation. The slow simplification of shape and decorative elements, which can be followed through time when examining her works, speaks not of the changing fashion of the era but of an independent branch of evolution. Her experiments have lead to the perfection of form and self-expression - To artistic creation itself. In this respect the beginnings and development of her span of sculptural work deserves special attention. Her atypical, elongated vases developed growths resembling birch tree vases, figures of old farmers’ wives and long, thin stalactite-like formations. From spherical vases evolved splitting, opening seeds growing out of spherical vessels, then the birth of celestial bodies, Andromeda galaxies, before we finally arrive at the bird series presented at the exhibition at the Vigadó Gallery in 1987 - at the abstract wings of white seagulls, depicting the infinite expanse of the universe and, ultimately, the freedom of human thought. Her benchmark has always been the highest possible standard, she has never accepted and continues to reject any halfway-measures in either her own work or that of those around her. She has invariably divided along categorical lines: for her there exists only the good and the perfect or the not worth viewing and mentioning, the unworthy of appreciation. For her, thinking within the context of the perfect unity of the world and taking that perfection as her standard, there are no such things as half-existences. She has always drawn her amazing, innovative inspiration and strength from this moral, philosophical attitude to her life and work. 33 i
