Ceramic artist Ilona P. Benkő is a defining, “history-making” – albeit modestly shy – figure in the history of our contemporary art, which is both local and global, uniting domestic and foreign, national and international aspirations. Her vocation, in which she has been active for over half a century, since the 1960s, links past and future, fine art and applied art, matter and idea. By exploring and applying the qualities of kiln-fired clay, and not forgetting the bitter and uplifting experiences of her own life, she has created a series of works that convey a soul-shaping experience “for everyone”. They carry a “message”, make the world knowable, and thus fulfil the most important mission of art, as György Fekete, quoting the thoughts of János Pilinszky, put it at the opening of the exhibition of her life's work on the occasion of Ilona P. Benkő's 75th birthday. She does not “depict” the emotional and intellectual sources behind these “messages” that she personally experienced, but gives abstract and symbolic form to the essence of her own experiences, and to the ceramic material itself. In Ilona P. Benkő's art, the nature of clay, its appearance influenced by physical and chemical reactions, has become a clear and decisive “expressive medium”. It creates an aesthetic and psychological effect – the material itself.
As early as the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Art Nouveau designers of the leading manufactories made innovative use of the qualities of ceramic craftsmanship and techniques from different eras and distant worlds discovered and mastered during the Historicism period. But it was only from the second half of the 20th century, in the last third, that a movement emerged which consciously used the symbolism of the material by combining the tools of fine arts and applied arts. Strangely enough, the pioneers of these endeavours were not separated by the “Iron Curtain” dividing the “western” and “eastern” halves of the world. Hungarian ceramicists, including Ilona P. Benkő, together with her artist friends and representatives of the newer generation, were at the forefront of discovering and exploring this global turn.
She does not depict the event that triggered the feeling, but “represents” the feeling itself, through symbolic forms and the behaviour of the material itself. In our postmodern era, this “style” has not yet been given a common name, but it has been and is being shaped by the related aspirations of many similar artists who have performed in groups for longer or shorter periods. Even before the 1980s. Not only ceramicists, but also those creating from textiles; not only “craftsmen” exploring the mysteries of craftsmanship, but also “fine artists” forming sculptures out of space, light, and movement, using coloured paints as reliefs. In our deeply controversial era, Ilona P. Benkő does not “compete” with any of her fellow artists; indeed, she teaches us, through her works, to “stick together”. Tying her prisms – forced apart – together with iron threads, she insists with an iron will on the unity of those that have been divided.
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Ilona P. Benkő became familiar with clay at a very young age, and began to acquire her professional skills at the so-called “Kisképző” (Little Fine Arts School), that is, the Képző- és Iparművészeti Gimnázium (Secondary School of Visual Arts) on Török Pál Street, in Budapest. The school also excelled in ceramics education. From 1956, she continued her studies at the College of Applied Arts, graduating as a ceramic artist in 1961. She always remembers her teachers: head teacher Gábor Szinte, who she calls a “great man”, vocational instructor Obrotka, and the fact that József Somogyi also taught her. And during her college years, the sculptor Miklós Borsos took her on as a student and, after István Gádor retired, “came every week to correct” the ceramics student. Although it happened that a clever, cunning colleague reported the workshop for modelling a fish – a Christian symbol – Ilona Benkő's Dragon, her diploma work sculpture, did not give rise to obstructive interpretations. She herself did not come from Cappadocia, like the dragon-slaying knight St. George, but from Transylvania, Szeklerland; the fate-altering historical turns of this region she lived through as a child, and her personal experience of tragic losses, armoured her for the battles to be fought with the dragons of life and art.
Like her colleagues, in the sixties Ilona P. Benkő worked for the domestic contemporary art trade, which was starting at that time through a collaboration of the Iparművészeti Vállalat (Applied Arts Company) and the Képcsarnok (Art Hall), and she also helped her colleagues. After years of deprivation, she also established a modest workshop, alongside sympathetic and supportive friends such as Margit Krajtsovits and Kálmán Csohány. From the mid-1960s they made a home together with her husband, József Péri, who graduated from the College as a goldsmith at the same time as her. Between 1965 and 1981, she also fulfilled public commissions. However, her work is primarily characterised by the unique sculptures created in her own studio and in the creative colonies established by art movements. She has exhibited her works regularly, both at home and, where possible, abroad. Her ever renewing creations, presented to the approval of strict jury committees (operating not only on the professional standards of Hungary), reveal a consistent yet spontaneous and living creative process, in sync with the rise of Hungarian ceramic art. The modernism and intellectual heritage of the period between the two world wars could be revived after 1956, and applied arts, wrapped in the cloak of “decorativeness”, could enjoy greater freedom than fine art. The geometrically simplified or abstracted, expressive formal solutions of the various “isms” were also defended by architects, and the forcibly neglected art of the home also demanded modern ceramic objects. The modernised Art Deco heritage and the serene world of coloured glazes firing on low heat were soon complemented and replaced by new bold “experiments”, “autonomous” works, and high-fired ceramic sculptures, blurring the boundaries between applied and fine arts, thus besieging and even transforming the terrain of sculpture. Much was blocked by the “Berlin Wall” and the “Iron Curtain”, but the winds of the “West” stirred up a storm at home (yet again).
Ilona Benkő had an opportunity to encounter the new technological possibilities of high-temperature masses and reducing firing as early as 1964 in Gmunden, when she was a participant in the second International Ceramics Symposium at the invitation of the founder, Kurt Ohnsorg. Imre Schrammel also arrived in Gmunden in 1967 at his friend’s behest, just as they worked together at the ceramics symposium starting in Siklós after 1969. Her sculptures made here, formed from pyrogranite and porcelain (at that time still partly fired in the Zsolnay factory in Pécs), testify that Ilona P. Benkő herself became a creative participant in the transformation of ceramic art that was taking place worldwide. By reviving and freely shaping the traditions of masters distant in time and space, and by exploring the physical properties of clay types, they turned the material itself into a new medium of expression evoking psychological effects. Yes, unfortunately, there is as yet no agreed common name for this “style”, which is as much a descendant of Surrealism and non-figurative, abstract tendencies as of the even earlier Art Nouveau symbolism, and is of an individual nature in almost all its representatives. But Ilona Benkő's porcelain-splintered, hatched chamotte relief from 1969 records and induces a spiritual state just as much as her later series unfolding from the late seventies and into the eighties. The series included the tattered Csipkével burkolt doboz (Box Covered with Lace), the Szétesett bimbó (Fallen-apart Bud), the Vágott, kötözött henger (Cut, Tied Cylinder), and Batyu (Bundle), and Pokoltojás (Hell Egg). Eloquent titles, like an imprint of the 20th century. But more eloquent than any word are the very simple, powerful forms. The texture of surfaces fired in high heat, the subtle shades of colour reduced inside or outside the kiln.
The technical possibilities of the individual workshops and the impulses of orientation were multiplied by the joint workshops in which Ilona P. Benkő's numerous works were born: in Siklós, Kecskemét, and finally in Hódmezővásárhely. The latest series on the Vihar (Storm) theme is also almost a personal, spiritual imprint of the historical experience of our time.
The vessels of ancient pottery also became sculptures in the hands of Ilona Benkő, as Gábor Terebess aptly put it (Gábor Terebess: Szoborrá vált edény (The Vessel Turned into Sculpture). Művészet, Vol. 20, No. 12, 10-15): “her works are femininely delicate and masculinely striking, elegant and rustic, archaic and modern, carrying a unique duality – this is the key to their understanding – but never ambiguous or open to misinterpretation”. The duality is resolved – in retrospect – by a conversation with the artist, who now calls the blocks split open with an axe and forcibly rejoined “Trianon”.
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To sum up: the place of birth and childhood, the period of professional training, the helpful artist friendships, the revolution in the techniques of handmade ceramics, and our “post-postmodern” era shaping the new style all shaped Ilona P. Benkő's art. Her driving force is her innate desire to create, combining her inherited ability to recognise value with the boldness of experimenters and explorers. In this way, she placed matter at the service of the soul.
The result: her artworks convey “abstracted” experiences filtered from the personal history of her own life, embodying the emotional essence of the times lived through, whether they be symbolic vessels or “real” sculptures and images. The fragmentation, the distortion, the dynamic, fleeting forms, and colour splashes are not in the service of chaos, but of an objective value system that exists even in storm-ravaged worlds. They strengthen the receiving souls. The sign language of the figures and the behaviour of the clay evoke emotions and associations. They stimulate a new-symbolist self-knowledge and situational awareness. They stimulate the sensitivity and thinking necessary to create the order of life and freedom. Perhaps they also influence our actions.
[2015]