"Memory of the Bones invites viewers to reflect on the duality of life and death, presence through absence, and how memory is preserved through the remnants of the human body. In this context, the bone becomes a testimony of millennia of presence, life, absence, disappearance, and death. The bone transcends space and time."
Fragment from the curatorial text signed by Dr. Diana Dochia
The solo show Memory of the Bones by Zsolt Berszán presents a series of small-format paintings (40 x 30 cm) outlining three cycles of works: Body in the Field (2021–2023), On the Field (2024), and Field (2024–2025). These cycles can be interpreted as three stages of the concept of dissolution.
In the first stage, the artist makes the materiality of the human body visible through fragments and carcasses. In the Body in the Field series (2021–2023), human remains are visible and easily identifiable to the viewer. In On the Field (2024), the viewer detects human fragments and carcasses placed within incandescent fields. By the Field series (2024–2025), the human presence is only suggested and felt through absence, the field engulfing the last traces of life.
Rebecca Schneider, in her writings, often emphasizes the importance of the bone in attesting to human existence. Berszán’s entire creation focuses on the ephemerality of human existence. The dissolution of the human body is examined through fragments, dismembered bodies, and barely visible skeletal carcasses that describe a collective memory of a world eviscerated by terror and war.
Perhaps not coincidentally, these small paintings function like exhibits in a forensic laboratory documenting, through artistic means, the horrors of war and the remnants left behind. Berszán does not depict a specific war; his creation is not tied to the memory of a particular person or experience but explores the idea of remnants, residues, traces—suggesting presence through absence.
This presence through absence highlights dissolution and disappearance into the void, emphasizing the fragility of the human body. Berszán’s paintings offer a profound meditation on the human condition, the fragility of existence, and the futility of massacres throughout history.
Memory of the Bones invites viewers to reflect on the duality of life and death, presence through absence, and how memory is preserved through the remnants of the human body. In this context, the bone becomes a testimony of millennia of presence, life, absence, disappearance, and death. The bone transcends space and time.
Curator: Dr. Diana Dochia
