Our gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of László Borsódy (1938) in the acb Attachment. Borsódy is a pioneering figure in post-WWII Hungarian ceramic art, whose career of more than six decades is an extraordinary example of autonomous artistic endeavours to break down the boundaries between applied and fine arts. The exhibition brings together ceramic sculptures, sculptural objects, wall pieces and archival documents, offering a comprehensive view of Borsódy’s multifaceted yet highly coherently constructed creative world.
Borsódy graduated from the College of Applied Arts in 1963, while also studying at the free schools of artists such as József Palkó and Miklós Borsos. Borsódy appeared at a time in Hungarian art life that was undergoing profound changes. He played a fundamental role in the reinterpretation of ceramics as a sculptural medium and developed an individual formal language, which is mainly defined by modernist abstraction and biomorphic shapes. His works are often inspired by the natural world; his creations evoke botanical and macro-organic structures, while carrying a lyrical tension between materiality and metaphysical contemplation.
The Poetics of Sphericity exhibition not only highlights key motifs in Borsódy’s oeuvre, but also points to its timeless relevance. In parallel with the ‘new materialist’ materialism of contemporary art and a resurgent interest in ceramic art, Borsódy’s legacy offers a key perspective that seeks to integrate form and function, tradition and experimentation, the built environment and the organic world into a single grand modernist endeavour.