No. 23 / March 2020
Mihai Plămădeală, art critic – article published in INSEMNE, Ed. Exigent, Bucharest, 2013
For Reka Csapo Dup, sculpture is a mode and at the same time a way to reconcile the seen with the unseen. As nothing emerges from nothing, at least since Creation, the Big Bang or any other event considered as zero point in time, we can take into account the truism that there will always be a before and an after. The passing through the present equivalent with the existence of each thing is thus constituted in a succession of transformations. For the artist, the mentioned change does not represent metamorphosis, but the becoming, in the sense of balance, with its feeling that the transcendent descends, revealing itself in any embodiment of the universe.
The matrix, seen as way of perpetuation of the world, was artistically and conceptually related to the Uranian fire. The Madonnas created by Reka Csapo Dup, white or black, are placed in a non-theological context, between the pre-Christian telluric deities, patterns of fertility and the mythological mermaids, symbols of sterility. This antinomic relation excludes from the discourse any playful component. The artworks belong exclusively to the visual area. Nothing accidental, nothing more, nothing less, everything under the sign of measure. Because the part and the whole are organically independent, the configuration of the exhibition-installation acquires a main role in the proposed project.
The representations of Madonna, conceived and made by Reka Csapo Dup, invite us to meditate, beyond the aesthetic aspects, on the relationship between one and multiple. The mechanical or artistic reproduction of an object, the more so as it constitutes a bearing medium for a sacred image, brings into discourse the capacity of the multiple to represent the unique. According to the study of “Mathesis or the Simple Joys” of the philosopher Constantin Noica, repetitions as variations or as such are related to mathematical reasons rather than philosophical ones, being degenerate types, in the case we are discussing, equivalent to the simulacrum.
The answer to the question of whether one and the multiple survive, coexist or merge in the artist’s creation belongs to each viewer, given that his sculpture does not try to be a gnoseological treatise, but reflects only a way of understanding the world. The proposed interrogation is related to the sacred and the profane, as we perceive them in everyday life, the fact that the profane can be considered a hypostasis of the sacred. The artist’s thinking, related to the topic under discussion, is if not dualistic, at least ambivalent; the feeling of sacredness takes the form of both the numinous and the theological. The cultural quote is also part of her visual system.
On another level of discourse, there are tensions between the universal and the particular, between constant and variable, in the conditions of insertion used as an artistic, rhythmic process. The cadence, the longitudinal development of the visiting route and the monumental component actively contribute to the game of the exhibition.
The limits of transposition are highlighted by the materials and techniques used, in an attempt to mark the seen and unseen links between the so-called objective reality and copy. Reka Csapo Dup becomes at this point, figuratively speaking, an alchemist. The force of materials, the consciousness of matter and the artistic will are intertwined in a discourse that, without looking for the philosopher’s stone, aims to establish a path from shape to the desired meaning. It is a morphological story intersected with the search for truth, rather through art than in art.
The conceptual axis of the exhibition, in fact an ellipse, is determined by the icon, symbol and identity. The works tend to be effigies, thus inviting speculation on imitative magic. But the only magic that exists is metaphor and art. We may wonder if we are dealing with a continuity or discontinuity of the theme, beyond appearances. What connections, other than the subjective ones, could exist in themselves, between the mysterious signs of being and the communist coats of arms? Are we dealing with effigies or badges? Iconological horizons, personal system, sincerity and experimentation are parts of the possible answer.