Behind the Unicorn with Bela Borsodi

May 01, 2018

Flipping through Bela Borsodi's new book Unicorn might remind you of word-to-picture puzzles you played with as a child— though this time they're certainly not as censored. True to form, Bosodi brings something stimulating, cerebral, and creatively stirring to the nostalgic, notable games— giving us a series of work which wanders from weird, to heartfelt, to humorous, without sacrificing the superb articulation of aesthetics we have come to associate with the artist.

To celebrate the arrival of Borsodi's first book and its accompanying signing at Dashwood Books NYC, on Wednesday May 2nd, office spoke with the artist for some exclusive behind the scenes insight of his creative process, lifelong interest in Rubus puzzles, and his transition from documentary photography to editorial work.

Interview by Izzi Sneider
Images courtesy of Bela Borsodi

This is your first book, tell us about the creative process that went into making “Unicorn”. What spurred the concept?

When I was offered to publish a book I thought of many different ideas. I finally decided on an idea which I carried with me already for a long time. Already as a kid I was very drawn to puzzles and one day thinking about ideas for various new projects I remembered the “Rebus puzzle”. I knew rebus puzzles always to be done in the form of illustrations, graphics and collages in various forms, but never by the means of mere photography. When I thought of trying to make these puzzles photographical I was very intrigued by this idea, but very soon I gave up because it seemed to be very complicated. But to explore something that complex and quite unpredictable was an ideal start for a long term project.

So for my first book “Unicorn” it became my initiative to work with rebus puzzles. Most exciting for me was the aspect that very different and unexpected objects would find themselves being next to each other. Together looking very randomly chosen and arbitrary, seemingly chosen by chance or by aesthetic preferences of the artist for the sake of composition. But this first impression of a random chaos of things soon reveals itself to be anything but being random, very much to the contrary: these random arrangements are governed by absolute control restriction precision and limitation. Guided by the necessary logic of the rebus any part of these photographs is ordered to the maximum, nothing at all is arbitrary although at first glance the image looks that way (unless the image is experienced without guidance, or with no interest of solving a puzzle).

Although the entire project is obviously so heavily controlled by the rebus puzzle my aim though was not at all to becoming a puzzle maker. I merely used the rebus puzzle as a guiding structure and discipline to explore the aesthetics of photography through the representation of objects, and in search for their alternative qualities. My true initiative was to endure an aesthetic adventure and to being surprised by its outcome. The entire project for “Unicorn” took about one year, half of it just to research and conceptualize, and the rest for producing and shooting.

You have a background in fine arts and started experimenting with photography by doing portraits and documentary shots for magazines. Your work today is possibly the opposite of documentary photography, how has that training influenced the work you produce now?

I think my answer to your question here works the other way round, understanding “documentary photography” better by what I am doing now. At first it seems obvious that “documentary photography” might possibly be the opposite to what I am now doing. This is of course true, but thinking about what documentary photography really is in its actual practice, I find quite similar strategies at work. To tell a story that comes closest to the “truth” or which wants to document a “reality” uses the initiative and the personal vision and experience of the individual (in this case the photographer). In my opinion documentary photography is not an absolute proof of a reality, it is governed by the experience and the merit of an individual, telling that story based on personal intention and intuition, direction and interpretation.

The quality of a successful documentary photograph depends on the right choice of moment and angle of the camera, able to showing only one perspective of that very moment and situation, being composed by aesthetic means for its drama and narrative within a context, driven and governed by an individual with an agenda and an ethic engagement. I think that the closest one can ever get to depicting “reality” and “authenticity” and documenting a real situation in photography is to somehow “inventing” and “directing” this reality to sell a “soft drink” or to explain the story about a conflict in the world uses quite similar tools, only with very different intentions and ethos.

Only the agenda is what makes it really seem different, the process techniques and tools for working visually are often quite the same. In short: there is no real “truth” in photography, all is necessarily to some extent fictional. In this way I do not think my work now is that much different from what I was doing before (or from documentary photography). I am just exploring other interests, or I could just say that I am documenting a different reality than what is usually associated with “documentary photography”.

How does this body of work differ from previous projects?

What is different about “Unicorn” to much of my other work is only that it is not in any relation to having to show products, or fulfilling a client's request or need (which is usually a starting point for much of what I do). Also I never have engaged yet in one single project that is so enduring, long lasting and consuming. It is completely self initiated and self financed, and only to satisfy my own curiosity: how a complex but promising idea which I have never seen executed before can take on shape, finds its own language and personality. An idea which in the course of the experience would continuously surprise me with its outcome in the final results.

This experience and my curiosity is what I want to share with my book. This project still being so very fresh within my system of course also makes me emotionally quite entangled with it. So right now I want to believe that it is one of my best works so far. And if I should realize in time that it is not, then I can reassure myself later that at least I had so very much fun doing it.

Is there an aesthetic or philosophical point of view that you are trying to get across with “Unicorn”?

Obviously I think a great deal about psychology philosophy and aesthetics, among many other things. What they mean and how they function. All of my many quests can be reduced to one single point of interest, which I believe is also very well represented in “Unicorn”. I am more interested in “good questions” than in (their) “good answers”. Often many answers are possible to one question, and they all can be interesting and revealing, but it is more often the questioning that sets unchartered territories in motion.

By a question I mean in this way more of an “exploratory” question, a project, a quest, an idea, a vague guess about something that pops up unexpectedly and needs to be looked into etc ... in short: a hunger to satisfying one's curiosity for something that is new and uncertain. Possible answers can be plentiful and often contradicting, or they entice for more questions. It is a process with no absolutes in return. I think a contradiction or an ambiguity is often more revealing and “true” about something than forcing things down to having only one answer. With “Unicorn” I wanted to encourage and reassure my audience of how much fun it is to explore ideas.

Bela Borsodi will be signing his book at Dashwood Books NYC Wednesday May 2nd from 6-8pm. Order Unicorn online at Dashwood Books

Art

Luna Luna: Surrealist Spectacle Lands in New York

November 21, 2024

In the 1980s, André Heller, an Austrian artist, singer-songwriter, and former actor, was looking for a new place to showcase his art. He had already taken to gardens, creating a colorful, surrealistic character using 40,000 flowers, and to the skies, organizing a 'fire theatre,' which involved an over-the-top fireworks show complete with steel-frame sculptures set on fire. But he had never tried out a fair.

So began "Luna Luna." Created as the world's first art carnival, "Luna Luna" combined the spectacular with the absurd, showcasing original rides and attractions from rising and already-at-the-top artists in Hamburg. Nearly forty years since its debut, followed by foiled plans for a worldwide tour, breached contracts, and 44 storage boxes, the art fair has finally returned, calling New York home after re-debuting last year in Los Angeles.

By Hailey Johnson
Photography by Delvin Claro and Sabrina Sarnitz, courtesy of Luna Luna LLC

On a recent evening in Hudson Yards, a small carousel featured characters in quirky, Twister-like poses and an outstretched dog with seven legs. (Almost a century old, the rides are no longer rideable.) Goofy wooden sculptures were elevated in another corner, some of them cross-eyed or with a horn for a nose. A geodesic dome glowed, with Gregorian chants hovering somewhere above it.

"It's an art experience like no other," Michael Goldberg, Chief Experience Officer of Luna Luna, said recently. "People get to see artists do things they've never done before," he added.

Goldberg, founder of Something Special Studios, a creative agency behind many Nike campaigns, was determined to resurrect “Luna Luna” after reading about it online in 2019. Goldberg shopped for investors, eventually teaming up with DreamCrew, a media company co-owned by the rapper Drake. (Details on the company's investment remain vague; sources have reported that DreamCrew spent over "100 million dollars.") In 2022, an intensive restoration process began, with a team of artists reviving many of the original works, which had remained in boxes in a Texas warehouse for over thirty years. Several had been in pieces. (The team reportedly had to rebuild each work "bolt by bolt.")

That night, at the Shed, fourteen out of the original thirty-five works were on display, including the small carousel (Keith Haring), the goofy sculptures (Kenny Scharf), the neon dome (Salvador Dali), and a towering Ferris wheel decorated in drawings of stick figures, upside crowns, and references to Jim Crow (Basquiat). Missing works are in a "constant state of restoration," Goldberg said. Meanwhile, new attractions are joining the line-up. For the New York show, the Puerto Rican duo Poncilí Creación was commissioned to create "PonciliLand," a blink-and-you-miss-it section where guests "can create fantastical characters out of custom building blocks." Poncili also developed floating characters, inspired by performers who circulated the original “Luna Luna” fairgrounds in 1987. Known as "Lovers," the two characters, large and dreamlike, teetered to one side, mumbling the kind of nervous groans one does before a fall. (They never ended up falling.)

I asked Goldberg if, given that today's culture doesn't quite look or feel the same way as it did in 1987, there was any hesitation in showing some of the original works. On a back wall, a tribute featured Manfred Diex's "Palace of the Wind," a show featuring performers who fart into a microphone; on another, two ornate pedestals held sculptures of spiral poop.

"I don't see any reason why we wouldn't show any of these works," he said. "A lot of the time, art is exclusive and uninviting. The big difference between “Luna Luna” and other art experiences is that it has many sides to it, and things that have a bit of humor and playful energy. "As for "Palace of the Winds,” the decision to keep it was simple: farting is universal. He went on: "The “Crap Chancellery" is, conceptually, one of the most important works in “Luna Luna.” Daniel Spoerri's dad was killed in the Holocaust, and the work was inspired by Albert Speer, who was Hitler's architect. He took the facade of what was meant to be a Nazi shrine and turned it into the facade of a bathroom with two steaming statues of shit standing on the outside. These works are extremely important and are things that we would definitely want to honor and draw attention to."

As “Luna Luna” further develops, the show will likely change. "It will continue to evolve as we go to different cities in response to the spaces that we pop up into and in collaboration with the local city," Goldberg said." With it, there will be new rides, new characters, and new stories to tell. One aspect that won't change, though, as Goldberg assured, is a long-held sentiment about a potential partnership. At one point, early on during the original “Luna Luna” era, McDonald's wanted to buy into it. Heller said no, adding that he "didn't want it to feel like Disneyland." Goldberg agreed. Nonetheless, as I watched Kenny Scharf's dizzying swing ride go around for what felt like the hundredth time, with the cartoon characters decorated on it blurring together (one with a villain's grin, another morphed into a martini glass), I couldn't help but feel like maybe I was at Disneyland, only not as robbed, but just as entertained and exhausted by its rides and fantastical characters, and wanting to go again.

Luna Luna, Hamburg, Germany, 1987.

Art

Pamela Sneed’s Speaking Tongue opens at Dashwood Projects

November 15, 2024

Pamela Sneed’s latest exhibition, Speaking Tongue, will be on view at Dashwood Projects from November 20 to December 21. The show features twenty watercolor and ink paintings inspired by her recent trip to Kenya, where she was deeply moved by the elegance of giraffes, the landscapes, and the energy of Nairobi.

Blending her background as a poet and visual artist, Sneed’s work reflects on themes of identity, nature, and connection. Her paintings capture the beauty and spirit of the animals she encountered, alongside reflections on her own experiences as part of the African diaspora.

This exhibition marks Sneed’s first solo show with Dashwood Projects and will be accompanied by a new book, also titled Speaking Tongue, to be released in December.

By Enzo Holdt
Artworks by Pamela Sneed

Art

Tiebreaker - Alvin Armstrong

November 15, 2024

There is a moment of silence right before the play. Just before the racket strikes the ball as it hangs weightless in the air, breathless and charged. It’s the fleeting yet decisive instant that can alter the course of the match, determining who wins and who loses.

Alvin Armstrong depicts this crucial moment in his new exhibition Tiebreaker, symbolizing the risks and rewards of competition. It’s an implication of something else at stake, where athletes push not only their bodies, but their spirits to the absolute limit.

The dynamic figures embody the strength, grace, and agility juxtaposed by the vibrant color palette evoking not just the joy of competition but the charged energy of the court.

Tiebreaker is opening Thursday, November 16th at Anna Zorina Gallery.