Interview with the Painter Dénes Ghyczy, who Lives and Works in Berlin
by Marie Budde for East European Studies Online, May June 2008
Marie Budde: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Dénes Ghyczy: I was born in Germany, in a small place called Diepholz, in 1970. Actually I haven't been back there since. My parents moved to Holland when I was two years old.
MB: What is your connection to Hungary?
DG: My father is Hungarian and my mother is German. My brothers, my sister and I were raised bilingually, German and Dutch, no Hungarian. I learned my father's language myself when I was 20. That was in 1990, just after the fall of the iron curtain. The early nineties were an incredibly exciting time to be in Budapest.
MB: Try to describe your identity. Do you feel Hungarian or German?
DG: In Holland, I was considered German; in Hungary, I was Dutch; here in Germany, I am Hungarian. It seems like I always get identified with the last place I arrived from. When I went to Hungary, I kind of found my missing half, and it was a great feeling that people could pronounce my name. But I will never be 100% Hungarian. Those 20 years in Holland cannot be denied. I'm half German, half Hungarian, and I feel European.
MB: How important is Hungary for your art?
DG: For every artist, the surroundings he works in are important. When I was living in Hungary, I gradually became influenced by the country and its culture, although this was not a conscious process. To live in Hungary means to live on a kind of island in Europe. There is a feeling of being a bit isolated, due to a huge language barrier and neighbors that seem difficult to get along with. While living there, this difficulty of communication became a main subject in my work, but on a very personal and intimate level, not on a political one.
MB: Why did you decide to live and work in Berlin after living in Hungary for 13 years?
DG: After initially developing very fast, there is now a kind of stagnation in Hungary. Unfortunately, the art world isn't developing much either. I could see myself in this situation ten years from now, knowing that it would be pretty much the same. So what was I waiting for? I decided to use my freedom and make a move. The decision to come to Berlin came spontaneously. That was in 2005, just before almost every artist felt the need to move here.
MB: Is there something like a community of East European artists in Berlin?
DG: Yes, there are many Hungarians, Poles, Russians, and other nationalities that are part of the Berlin art scene. The Hungarians have a cultural institute that just moved into a beautiful new building, the Collegium Hungaricum. Part of it is also a gallery run by Hungarian artists called the Lada project. For Hungarian culture, Berlin is the gateway to Europe.
MB: Can you tell us a little bit more about your art?
DG: My medium is painting, although photography plays an important role in my work as well. I always work in series focusing on different subjects. A central theme is the idea of a multilayered identity and a look at individuals as living structures with more than one center.
MB: What inspires you?
DG: I'm fascinated by reading about how science tries to unravel the functions of the human brain. We are just at the beginning of mapping out the mind. At the same time, the borders of our identity have become unclear. With the help of new media and technical development, it has become very easy to change identity or switch into another reality. The question of who we are has become increasingly difficult to answer.
MB: Your newest series called Siamese Savants and Mental Collage seem to be more complicated. Why this change?
DG: I think the series are raising more questions. My earlier work was about seeing the world through glass and thus taking on a passive role as an observer. Since I left this feeling of isolation behind, I have been experimenting with fragmenting and rearranging the subjects, hoping to learn something about how the images we have of ourselves as human beings function. For me, it is all a question of becoming conscious.