Human and Beyond

group glass art exhibition

Following the success of our 2024 glass art exhibition Occupied Spaces, this February we again wish to highlight artists who express their artistic narratives through the medium of glass, developing unique techniques and visual languages. The Human and Beyond / Ember és azon túl exhibition will be opened by curator of the exhibition: Edit Kondor, DLA, ceramic designer, university lecturer.

Exhibiting artists: Péter BORKOVICS (HU), Márta EDŐCS (HU), Judit GRÜNFELDER (HU), Balázs SIPOS (HU), Martina JANÁKOVÁ (CZ), František JANÁK (CZ)

Humans always approach the world from the perspective of themselves. The limits of our bodies and the boundaries of our senses define what we call reality. Yet these boundaries are never fixed: they expand, shift, and rewrite themselves in every moment. The exhibition Human and Beyond / Ember és azon túl makes this fluid, boundary-less existence visible through the figurative works of six glass artists — four Hungarian and two Czech.

The works examine, through various gestures of anthropomorphism, how we project ourselves onto the world: how we recognize human traits in an animal’s gaze, a distorted body, or a shapeless mass. Animal representation here is not mimicry but a mirror: a space of the soul where humans encounter the displaced form of their own instinctual world. Sexuality is not a field of physical encounter but the deeper energy that drives all living organization — the basic pattern of approach, union, and crossing boundaries. The details of the body — fragments, emphasized forms, softened contours — raise the question of whether the part or the whole brings us closer to understanding ourselves. Abstraction becomes the point where the body is no longer an object but a principle: a rhythm, a thought folding back on itself. The material of glass — fragile, dissolving into light — is particularly sensitive to carrying these questions. It is a medium that simultaneously creates presence and transparent absence.

The works invite the viewer to reconsider what it means to be human, and where the boundary lies between body, instinct, icon, and abstraction. The ensemble of artworks does not offer a single definition of “the human” but provides perspectives — an opportunity to recognize our own form in the shapes, beings, and materials around us. The “beyond” here is not a distant goal but a nearby mirror — a space where human existence seeks a new form.

Side-events:

  • Wednesday, March 4, 6:00 PM: Roundtable discussion with the artists (discussion in Hungarian)

  • Wednesday, March 18, 6:00 PM: Closing event with a curatorial tour

The exhibition will be open from February 12 to March 20, 2026, on weekdays from 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM.