The sculptor István Bencsik’s oeuvre unfolded and came to fruition during a turbulent historical era: in the second half of the 20th century and in the first decades of the new millennium. His early works were created in the so-called dark 1950s, while his most important pieces were produced during the decades of the socialist system’s post-1956 consolidation, its subsequent weakening and dissolution, and throughout the two and a half decades following the so-called regime change in ‘89. István Bencsik developed his sculpture in the spirit of an autonomous artistic program, independent of the prevailing political system or power. To realize his artistic vision, he had to face numerous conflicts and endured long periods of marginalization. This artist’s stance – willing to make sacrifices – is also represented in his public engagement: in his work during the 1960s at the helm of the Studio of Young Artists, where he acted for artistic independence; in his role in organizing and promoting the artists’ colony movement in the 1970s and 1980s; and in his efforts in the field of artist training and university-level art education from the 1980s onwards.
Although in the 1950s and 1960s this artist also created some traditional public compositions – primarily decorative figurative works – he never joined the ranks of the monument-makers and portrait-producers working on commission: he produced his monumental works mainly in the context of artists’ colonies, without a client. Following the lyrical bronze and stone decorative sculptures of his early career – Hintázó gyerekek (Children on a Swing, Gyula, 1957), Fiú szamáron (Boy on a Donkey, 1958), Fiú szarvason (Boy on a Stag, Dunaújváros, 1965), Kútfigura (Fountain Figure, Szolnok, 1966), Térdeplő lány (Kneeling Girl, Zalaegerszeg, 1958) – a chance opportunity opened up for him at a pulmonary sanatorium in Budapest. At the request of Dr. Ferenc Kovács, a pulmonologist, and drawing on insights gained in the course of making medical models, he undertook the formulation of new sculptural problems: by fitting and polishing wooden cubes together, he built sculptures of body parts, and by creating chest-forms reflecting the states of exhalation and inhalation, he became attentive to the significance of sculptures that evoke human body parts – unconventional torsos and body-fragments. After the self-financed exhibition at the Fényes Adolf Hall in Budapest, organized together with Ilona Keserü and János Major, the art historian Géza Perneczky –one of the strictest art critics of the period – wrote in his review in Élet és Irodalom (Life and Literature): ‘Far more remarkable are Bencsik’s figurative sculptures, which were produced in the course of a medical experiment, to record or illustrate the precise anatomy of inhalation and exhalation. A sculpture cast from the living body is always false, because the weight of the plaster distorts the free movement of the body. Bencsik has now, by means of optical measurements, recorded and reconstructed the forms of the living body from carved and glued surfaces of small wooden cubes. The result is stunningly beautiful and eerily metaphysical, as if a Faust had, with compass and ruler, fixed the pulsating movement of a Margaret’s body.’ After concluding his series of crumpled metal sculptures, and in parallel with the creation of his large wooden pieces at Nagyatád, he produced at Villány stone sculptures that focused on individual human body parts, highlighting enlarged details and embodying the absence created by the fragment. Among these emerged epoch-marking works such as Arc (Face - Ma’donna, 1980) and Európa (Europe, 1979). Regarding the latter, the art historian Katalin Keserü, in a study published in the journal Művészet, wrote about the natural inspiration of Bencsik’s sculptures: ‘István Bencsik’s sculpture Europe, made at the Siklós Sculpture Symposium, has a clear connection with nature and natural forms. Bencsik once again turned to a theme he had first explored in the late 1960s and had often reworked in various ways: the delicate plasticity of the extracted and then magnified body part – but now experimenting with a new material. Whereas previously he built his sculpture from wooden cubes, here he constructed it from slabs of marble, unfolding the plastic and surface effects latent in the veining of the stone. Thus, he brought the sensitively polished, large surface’s fine curves and transitions closer to natural forms. At the same time, by fitting together and polishing the marble slabs, he created a new relationship between the natural and the crafted state of the material, between natural and artistic form: retaining the effect of massiveness, but constructing from fragile elements, the artistically wrought form came to resemble a nature rich in inner movements.’
Alongside his monumental compositions placed outdoors in an open space, Bencsik produced exhibition sculptures that reflected a similar concept: by highlighting fragments of the back, abdomen, or buttocks, he ultimately remained within the boundaries of figuration yet opened the way for the elaboration of an entirely new order of form. The body-part sculptures developed into an independent chapter with the Genesis works, which interpret an enlarged finger detail. By the turn of the millennium, István Bencsik had created an extensive series of variations on this theme, including two key works: Genesis II (In Memory of Albert Einstein), a plaster sculpture realized at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, and the Magyar Millenniumi Emlékmű (Hungarian Millennium Memorial), carved in limestone and erected in 2000 beside the castle of Szigetvár.
In interpreting these works, it is best to turn to the artist himself, who in the Bencsik album published in 1997 by Jelenkor articulated the following ars poetica:
‘As a sculptor I started out figuratively, and I had to realize that over the course of millennia, if a figure is the subject of sculpture, it inevitably makes gestures. Gestures prevent the appearance of physical beauty itself. In Greek sculpture, the same gestures were used for centuries. The consequence of this was that gestures had no significance… Returning to my own works, I wanted to free myself from the gestures of the human figure, because I thought gestures belong to the theater, not to sculpture. But what is even more essential is that the beauty I envisioned cannot be expressed or apprehended in a whole figure. I can only reinforce this assertion (for a sculpture is an assertion), that “x” body part is beautiful, if I cut it out of the whole and enlarge it. But I do not always enlarge the details, only if I am dealing with such small details that, at their actual size, they are invisible. Every body part is a discovery. I cut with hard planes because this is how I can convince the viewer that it is not a fragment but a deliberate section, if I demonstrate the cut itself. I completely reject that nineteenth-century effect where the torso is made so that the arms, neck, and trunk simply break off somewhere. This sculptural form was transmitted from the Renaissance, when fragments were discovered and it turned out they were very beautiful. Sculptors imitate these museum fragments. In my view this is nonsense. If I make a detail of the human body, then I must consciously take responsibility for it. If I want to philosophize, I could say that the plane I apply is not a form. It is a geometric intervention in the system itself.’
Looking at the traditional compositions created in the late 1950s and placed in public space from the 1960s onward; the monumental works produced at artists’ colonies at home and abroad; the body-fragment sculptures that found their home in interiors and urban contexts; the small sculptures and statuettes acquired by prestigious collections; and the medium-sized works – and considering as well his selfless artistic and public activity and his role as a teacher of art – it can be said that the oeuvre of the sculptor István Bencsik constitutes an exceptional, large-scale phenomenon within Hungarian art of the second half of the 20th century and the opening decades of the new millennium. Every historical moment, every episode in the chronology of his career, every work is a manifestation of the inviolability of the autonomous artist and the freedom of art.
István Bencsik’s sculptures, marked by a distinctly individual character, a peculiar beauty, and a modern artistic sensibility, move far beyond the world of convention, establishing inventive orders of form and enriching modern Hungarian sculpture with significant innovations embodied in works of truly masterful quality.
[2015]