Márton NEMES

Arriving at the Gittinger Wine estate in the small village of Hegymagas overlooking Lake Balaton, a colourful perpendicular structure commands attention amidst the built environment of the winery, standing in contrast to the panoramic view. The outdoor sculpture Bipolar 03, created site specifically by Márton Nemes, is deceptively simple: it consists of three long, narrow, curved sheets of metal placed in alternating directions, with a few conjoining elements supporting the structure. Turquoise, magenta and dark grey stainless steel dominate the composition framed by yellow, blue and red brackets. A single colour gradient appears on the lower structural rods, washing dark blue over red. The unified composition of bent metal planes is interspersed only with screws painted blue that pierce the planar surfaces and join them to the supporting brackets. This juxtaposition of synthetic and primary colours is a recurring motif in the artist’s oeuvre, though the reductionist treatment of colour, form and material is a more unique phenomenon. With its smooth, unembellished surfaces, the Bipolar series is exceptional in Nemes’s body of work, departing from his typically visually overloaded painterly practice, which interrogates the extremes and boundaries of painting. The Bipolar series, initiated in 2022, is an emblematic spatial trend in Nemes’s sculptural endeavours, featuring a forceful, perpendicular structure that emerges from colliding planar and spatial realities. Based on a travertine limestone plinth, Bipolar 03 is classical in its arrangement, palette and material combination. The geometry of the sculpture is elemental: two metal strips curve in one direction, while the third is bent in the opposite, forming an axially symmetrical, dynamic composition implicitly suggesting the presence of movement, force and pressure through solid materials. Light refracted from the sculpture’s surfaces becomes its sole adornment apart from the colouring, layering an ever-changing interplay of illumination onto static matter. The natural environment of the Balaton Uplands accentuates the sharp opposition between the natural, organic and degradable and the artificial, industrial and imperishable. Despite its apparent simplicity, Bipolar 03 ultimately reinvents the upright, standing sculpture remotely summoning prehistoric monoliths. It is also imbued with more recent art historical references: the work evokes the minimalism of Barnett Newman and rethinks the compositional values in the spatial works of Anne Truitt. Nemes engages with the traditions of primary structures, creating a harmonious, albeit not entirely austere work of art. Influences of hard-edge painting can be detected, with the shaped canvases of Dóra Maurer serving as a notable point of reference in both form and colour. However, while Nemes adapts and alters certain aspects of minimal art, he rejects its philosophy of detachment from emotion and expression. Through his sculptural forms, Nemes questions the proportions and morphology of forms aligning somewhat with minimalism’s theoretical boundaries. The sculpture’s title, however, contradicts minimalism’s convention of using purely descriptive titles or leaving works untitled, inviting interpretation and emotional engagement. Márton Nemes encourages a collaborative effect between artwork and language, using the title as an agent to foster associations, stimulating the artwork to exceed its visual imprint and extend interpretative possibilities. The term bipolar, by definition, invokes opposite extremes. Used in multifarious contexts, bipolar expresses the positive and negative charge in electricity; it refers to the Earth’s poles; but it can also allude to the affective disorder displaying interchangeable depressive and manic behaviours. Etymologically, polar derives from the Latin polus meaning “end of an axis” or “sky, heavens,” rooted in a word meaning “to revolve, move round.” These connotations are faintly echoed in the physical qualities and positioning of the sculpture. While the piece itself embodies material restraint and visual quietness, its evocative title inherently conveys a sense of change and recurrence – whether physical or emotional – paradoxically destabilising the concept of permanence. With three planes leaning in two directions, the work manifests the fluctuation and cyclicality of internal states, be it a period of depression or elevation, in tangible form.