Clara Benedek

Clara Benedek (b. 1972, Pécs) is a Hungarian-Austrian sculptor whose work in cast bronze has, over three decades, become synonymous with a particular register of stillness. Trained in Budapest and Vienna, she settled in the latter city in the late 1990s and has worked there since, casting standing and seated figures that are thin, elongated and inward-turned. The bodies are slight, the heads bowed or averted, the surfaces left matte and roughly worked; a deep, near-black or dark-brown patina absorbs rather than reflects the light around them. Critics have noted the obvious lineage to Giacometti, yet Benedek's figures are heavier and more grounded, less anxious than withdrawn, as though weight itself were a form of silence. Cast in modest editions through lost-wax processes she oversees closely, the works are shown singly on plain plinths, asking the viewer to approach and then to wait. Her sculpture has been exhibited across Hungary, Austria and Switzerland, including at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest and Belvedere 21 in Vienna, and is held in significant public and private collections. She is represented by Brunner & Sand, Zürich.

A figure that looks away gives you more room than one that meets your eye. I work until the surface stops asking to be touched. What the bronze keeps to itself is the part that matters; I try not to take it back.