Gábor KASZA

GÁBOR KASZA - CONCRETE CONCERN
Artist Statement

My practice begins with a simple premise: the form should remain true to its becoming. I am interested in making not as the execution of a predetermined image, but as the creation of conditions in which form can emerge. Intention remains essential, but rather than imposing a final form, I establish conditions through which the material, physical forces, chance and time can participate in its formation.

I work with Natural Mineral Composite, allowing gravity, flow, viscosity, drying, shrinkage, fracture and time to become active forces in the work. I am not interested in imitating the forms of nature, but in allowing the mechanisms through which nature creates form to participate in making. The material is not passive; it has a will of its own.

The process is a continuous feedback loop: condition → becoming → perception → response → new condition. What has already happened becomes the condition for what happens next. Nothing can return to zero. No delete, no correction. Every action changes the possibilities of the next one, and the work carries the memory of its own making. Once solidified, a form cannot be undone. Solidification fixes a period of becoming into one state — like a film whose frames are exposed simultaneously. The material becomes a record of what happened.

The practice develops through three related modes: Flow, where form emerges through material interaction; Deconstruction, where an existing form becomes material for one or more new works when the work does not work or is not yet final. If it does not work, I cannot go back — I can only continue from what exists. I break it apart and fragment it, allowing what remains to become material for what follows. Deconstruction becomes a means of construction; and Transmutation, where everyday, industrial and disposable objects lose their original identity while retaining their memory. This is what makes these works contemporary: they carry the traces of the material culture of our time while questioning why these objects come into being, what they mean to us, and what ultimately becomes of them. These works are collectible design objects.


At the centre of these processes is Material Paradox: heavy can appear light, hard can appear soft, the permanent can preserve the temporary, the common can become precious, and the mass-produced can become unique. The durable preserves the memory of the temporary. I use this paradox to question not only what materials are, but how we assign value and meaning to objects.

I practice Tai Chi, and martial arts and visual art continuously support and refine each other. The Taoist concepts of wu wei and ziran describe a mode of action based not on passivity, but on responding without unnecessary force. I recognise the same principle in making: sensing resistance, adapting, knowing when to intervene and when to let the process unfold. This requires a different role for the artist: the ego does not disappear; I refine myself.

I believe this principle extends into relationships, raising children, communities and society. We create conditions, encounter responses from others, adapt, and create new conditions. Diversity → interaction → emergence. What emerges cannot always be predetermined by any single participant. For me, this is not a separate social theory, but another scale at which the same logic becomes visible.

The practice is informed by several histories: Dada opened the boundary between object and art; I take the displaced object further into material transformation. Abstract Expressionism, particularly Pollock and Rothko, brought gesture, flow, colour and material action into the work; I shift the emphasis from the artist's gesture toward an active negotiation with material. Hantaï — pliage → conditions / chance / relinquishing control; I extend this into a continuous feedback between action and response. Process Art made process, time and material becoming central; for me, the process does not remain process — it solidifies into the object. Conceptual Art demonstrated how information can alter perception; I use this through the documentation of making, allowing the viewer to encounter the same object again with different knowledge.

My artworks are not illustrations of an idea, a story, or a memory. They are manifestations of their becoming — evidence of what has actually happened, and a trace of this practice. The form is true to its becoming. Just true. Just natural. Perhaps simply normal.
Maybe this is freedom.