texere

Emese BENCZÚR, Lajos CSONTÓ, Márton DÉS, Sonia NAVARRO

Vernissage: 4 June 2026, Thursday, 6 PM

Opening speech: Dr. Zsolt Petrányi, art historian, curator

Curators: Ani Molnár and Imola Balogh

On view: 5 June – 28 August 2026

Text and textile share a common origin: the Latin word texere means to weave or to

connect, so writing and weaving appear as inherently interrelated activities. In the

works of Emese Benczúr, Lajos Csontó, Márton Dés, and Sonia Navarro, text does not

simply convey meaning, but becomes surface, rhythm, repetition, and material.

Sentences lose their clear communicative function: they accumulate, fade into one

another, break apart, organize themselves into systems, and gradually become

unstable. Language does not disappear, rather, it begins to refer back to its own

operation.

The exhibited works of Emese Benczúr are built on the contradictions between

handicraft, repetition, and imperative statements. The short, slogan-like phrases in

the works STAY SENSITIVE and SHINE ON US evoke the language of advertising,

self-help culture, and personal belief, while the repetitive process of execution

gradually renders these statements self-ironic. A constant tension emerges between

the meticulously crafted surfaces and the monotonous physical labor behind them, in

which vulnerability, hope, and exhaustion coexist.

In the works of Lajos Csontó, language appears as a fragment of memory, as a ghostly

imprint. The dissolving sentences and the disjointed or incomplete linguistic

structures do not create stable meaning, rather, they model a state of uncertainty and

the fragility of memory. The texts feel as though someone were trying to recall a

sentence of which only fragments remain. The figures appearing in the images

become carriers of narrative: notes of rapid associations and fleeting observations,

where layers of personal and collective memory overlap.

Márton Dés collects the visual information of the world and transforms it through

processes of deconstruction, inversion, and the insertion of linguistic elements. In his

paintings, everyday statements and slogans often accumulate and turn into visual

layers. “BE YOURSELF” easily slips into “BE YONCÉ,” and the motivational message

begins to reveal its own absurdity. Here, language does not liberate but echoes as

noise, as an oppressive system, while humor continuously lightens this overloaded

environment.

Sonia Navarro’s textile works exist at the threshold of language, her stitched

structures and pathways resemble legible systems, yet their meaning does not

emerge through textual reading. In her practice, embroidery and sewing function as

alternative forms of writing — leaving traces, repetition, archiving, and memory-

making. The dashed lines evoke maps, travelled routes, or family topographies. The

textile surfaces simultaneously recall landscapes and the memories attached to them,

so meaning is constructed not through words but through connections, rhythms, and

intersections. In Navarro’s works, the original meaning of the word “textus” becomes

visible: meaning is literally woven together from threads.

In the exhibited works, language gradually loses its transparent and stable role as a

conveyor of meaning. Through repetition, layering, displacement, and materiality,

text transforms into image, gesture, and structure. Meaning does not disappear but

remains in constant flux: rewritten, interrupted, and destabilized.