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Featured Artist Interview - Bela Borsodi
BY
Bela Borsodi
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Eccentrically vibrant, Bela Borsodi is a name one will certainly remember. This award-winning master of startling provocative imagery combines the strangest of still-life elements with fashion, styling and set design.
Mixing playful insinuation with the sensibility of an artist's touch, Bela draws viewers into a surreal playground where products are animated into lives of their own, and naughty they are, indeed. More so than that, Bela's unconventional products weave a psychological thread all their own.
TAXI treads cautiously and prepares to be overwhelmed by the very magical Bela Borsodi.
TAXI>>Hey Bela! I’m going to use the words “kinky smart” to describe your works. Tell me briefly how you would describe your style.
Bela>>Kinky smart? I would not know of how to describe my “style” because I don’t really look for a “style” or commit to a particular look – I try to find a different approach or something that is new to me with each project that I want to explore – my work is a lot about exploring possibilities of an alternate perception of things and to have fun.
Obviously that so often falls into a particular visual direction that could be described as a “style” that reflects my interests – I love making things and putting things in an unusual context incorporating various visual languages coming from art and graphic design – eroticism is also a fascination of me that I love exploring - I never repeat the concepts of my projects unless it is for advertising.
TAXI>>How do you create the perfect combinations for your product photography, such as a wine glass-spiked skull resting on a chalice, and a curved candle in leather and chains, both from your “Hidden Objects” series?
Bela>>In this project I wanted to portray human feelings and conditions illustrated merely by the combination and arrangement of different objects – feelings like passion love anger fear etc – I wanted to use only objects that were already in my private possession and I did not want to go shopping for this project - it took me quite a while to find the right things in my closet and the colors and the juxtaposition until I was happy with the images.
Because of the use of my own private possessions and trying to illustrate such very personal emotions the entire series naturally turned out to be very personal to me.
TAXI>>If you could put yourself in one of your own photoshoots as a product, what would the set up be?
Bela>>Actually I am already present in all of my photo shoots – in every one of my projects I am so very involved physically and I always see also the perspective of the products in it - as if I am one of them – for the creatures posing in my photos I shape the world around them to give them space and something interesting to do.
If I really was to be one of the products in my images I most likely would be one that smokes a lot and flirts with the most gorgeous other product on set – perhaps we would even make out and drive the others very jealous.
TAXI>>What drives you to create these images? Tell me in a psychological sense, not just aesthetically speaking.
Bela>>To try new things out and to find more possibilities about what objects can do and engage with – to think about anything as if you would see it for the first time in your life and don’t know yet about their purpose and function – to explore them freely and to get to know them – sometimes you find out that their inherent function is indeed the very obvious one but often you can detect also other hidden qualities within them.
All this leads to playing with things and to engage them to role-play and my photos document these adventures.
TAXI>>I love your “Big Bag Theory”, “Make a Face” and “Face” series. Oh hell, I just love them all. Have you ever come across a product that you just couldn’t personalize?
Bela>>These stories I did quite a long time ago – usually I don’t run into problems of finding an interesting new approach to challenge objects – in the process of finding a good and promising concept I often go back and forth with lots of different ideas and that can be sometimes quite exhausting – but then there is always this surprising moment when all falls together and takes on shape. I remember that working with those sun block lotions (“spalmati” in Italian “Numero”) was quite difficult – until I finally decided to let them out of their containers and let them do their thing.
TAXI>>Are there any other mediums you could be exploring in the near future?
Bela>>I constantly try out different ideas for my shoots and I often use different disciplines of craft and mediums within them - so I can very much imagine that at the right moment this might also lead to try out other mediums – my background is fine arts and graphic design – I believe that one of my next explorations could be working with moving images – perhaps I will go for an old dream of mine to do an animation movie.
TAXI>>You often cite the irony in your works, such as ugly pictures of great food. Is this something you look out for first whenever presented with a product to work on?
Bela>>A lot of times I first try to think of ideas that might challenge an obvious approach and that try to contradict the nature and position of the product in this world - this often can lead to an interesting first direction – but it is also important to not try to do things differently just for the sake of it – this approach only helps to start a dialogue with them and to find out about their character.
One has to learn to listen to the things and to understand and to respect their nature. In a way it is quite similar to working with people - also objects do talk back and have attitude and their vanities and egos.
TAXI>>What can the world expect from Bela Borsodi? Do you see that changing any time soon?
Bela>>I try to do this with every project that I am working on – what to expect from me any time soon? I am curious myself.
TAXI>>I'm sure everyone would love to see your current working space. How about showing it to us?
Bela>>Here it is - Lovely isn’t it?
TAXI>>Okay Bela, before we end, where would you like a TAXI to take you to now?
Bela>>To new adventures and more dialogue - but actually I also would love it if you perhaps could take me to a nice place - to get a bit of rest from my crazy schedule and to think about new exciting things to do.
© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
Mixing playful insinuation with the sensibility of an artist's touch, Bela draws viewers into a surreal playground where products are animated into lives of their own, and naughty they are, indeed. More so than that, Bela's unconventional products weave a psychological thread all their own.
TAXI treads cautiously and prepares to be overwhelmed by the very magical Bela Borsodi.
TAXI>>Hey Bela! I’m going to use the words “kinky smart” to describe your works. Tell me briefly how you would describe your style.
Bela>>Kinky smart? I would not know of how to describe my “style” because I don’t really look for a “style” or commit to a particular look – I try to find a different approach or something that is new to me with each project that I want to explore – my work is a lot about exploring possibilities of an alternate perception of things and to have fun.
Obviously that so often falls into a particular visual direction that could be described as a “style” that reflects my interests – I love making things and putting things in an unusual context incorporating various visual languages coming from art and graphic design – eroticism is also a fascination of me that I love exploring - I never repeat the concepts of my projects unless it is for advertising.
TAXI>>How do you create the perfect combinations for your product photography, such as a wine glass-spiked skull resting on a chalice, and a curved candle in leather and chains, both from your “Hidden Objects” series?
Bela>>In this project I wanted to portray human feelings and conditions illustrated merely by the combination and arrangement of different objects – feelings like passion love anger fear etc – I wanted to use only objects that were already in my private possession and I did not want to go shopping for this project - it took me quite a while to find the right things in my closet and the colors and the juxtaposition until I was happy with the images.
Because of the use of my own private possessions and trying to illustrate such very personal emotions the entire series naturally turned out to be very personal to me.
TAXI>>If you could put yourself in one of your own photoshoots as a product, what would the set up be?
Bela>>Actually I am already present in all of my photo shoots – in every one of my projects I am so very involved physically and I always see also the perspective of the products in it - as if I am one of them – for the creatures posing in my photos I shape the world around them to give them space and something interesting to do.
If I really was to be one of the products in my images I most likely would be one that smokes a lot and flirts with the most gorgeous other product on set – perhaps we would even make out and drive the others very jealous.
TAXI>>What drives you to create these images? Tell me in a psychological sense, not just aesthetically speaking.
Bela>>To try new things out and to find more possibilities about what objects can do and engage with – to think about anything as if you would see it for the first time in your life and don’t know yet about their purpose and function – to explore them freely and to get to know them – sometimes you find out that their inherent function is indeed the very obvious one but often you can detect also other hidden qualities within them.
All this leads to playing with things and to engage them to role-play and my photos document these adventures.
TAXI>>I love your “Big Bag Theory”, “Make a Face” and “Face” series. Oh hell, I just love them all. Have you ever come across a product that you just couldn’t personalize?
Bela>>These stories I did quite a long time ago – usually I don’t run into problems of finding an interesting new approach to challenge objects – in the process of finding a good and promising concept I often go back and forth with lots of different ideas and that can be sometimes quite exhausting – but then there is always this surprising moment when all falls together and takes on shape. I remember that working with those sun block lotions (“spalmati” in Italian “Numero”) was quite difficult – until I finally decided to let them out of their containers and let them do their thing.
TAXI>>Are there any other mediums you could be exploring in the near future?
Bela>>I constantly try out different ideas for my shoots and I often use different disciplines of craft and mediums within them - so I can very much imagine that at the right moment this might also lead to try out other mediums – my background is fine arts and graphic design – I believe that one of my next explorations could be working with moving images – perhaps I will go for an old dream of mine to do an animation movie.
TAXI>>You often cite the irony in your works, such as ugly pictures of great food. Is this something you look out for first whenever presented with a product to work on?
Bela>>A lot of times I first try to think of ideas that might challenge an obvious approach and that try to contradict the nature and position of the product in this world - this often can lead to an interesting first direction – but it is also important to not try to do things differently just for the sake of it – this approach only helps to start a dialogue with them and to find out about their character.
One has to learn to listen to the things and to understand and to respect their nature. In a way it is quite similar to working with people - also objects do talk back and have attitude and their vanities and egos.
TAXI>>What can the world expect from Bela Borsodi? Do you see that changing any time soon?
Bela>>I try to do this with every project that I am working on – what to expect from me any time soon? I am curious myself.
TAXI>>I'm sure everyone would love to see your current working space. How about showing it to us?
Bela>>Here it is - Lovely isn’t it?
TAXI>>Okay Bela, before we end, where would you like a TAXI to take you to now?
Bela>>To new adventures and more dialogue - but actually I also would love it if you perhaps could take me to a nice place - to get a bit of rest from my crazy schedule and to think about new exciting things to do.
© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.