WITH BELA BORSODI
Aus Dem Schatten Getreten by Bela Borsodi, for Stern magazine, 2006
Bela Borsodi’s surreal fashion imagery brings clothes and accessories to life. Through combining aspects of art, design and craft his work offers us fashion in 3-dimensions; at once caricature and vanguard of today’s most extrovert fashion sensibilities. The New York based artist and photographer has worked for the likes of Vogue, Wallpaper and Another Magazine, and fashion brands Baume & Mercer Watches, Hermes and Selfridges. In this extract from Varoom’s Mapping the Terrain survey of cutting edge fashion illustration, contributing editor Faye Dowling talks to the Varoom 04 cover star about his playful visual experimentation and boundary crossing methodologies.
Drawn Together by Bela Borsodi, for Details Magazine, US 2006
Was fashion always a calling for you?
To work in fashion is a great platform from which to communicate ideas and feelings, and to have adventures on. In photography you can use fashion to tell stories, and fashion is an imaginative form of art and communication in itself. Fashion and photography can inspire and enhance each other really well – for me, fashion became more interesting once I began working with it. My background is fine art and graphic design.
Your images bring accessories to life in the pages of fashion magazines. How did you develop this way of working with still-life?
I wanted to further explore what one can do with objects; in which different ways I could look at them to discover their alternate perspectives and psychologies. Many objects are perceived in a way that is immanent and bound to their basic function or obvious status in our world. I wanted to question those perceptions and find different ways to explore objects themselves. So I started to play… doing things wrong on purpose, or putting things in weird contexts, adding more layers… trial and error by play. All this led me to integrate disciplines and to try out other visual languages with elements such as illustration or set building.
With this cross-disciplinary methodology – how do you intend your work to be perceived?
I frequently get asked if I consider myself to be an artist or a commercial photographer, but I don’t think too much about such categories. I am more interested in the very nature and experience of my projects, than discussing their limitations. A lot of people in the commercial world consider me to be an artist, yet people in the art world consider me to be a commercial photographer. For me it is often about communicating between those different worlds and disciplines.
Do you recognize a difference in your creative approach to your more commercial clients?
I try to treat each of my projects equally and to make them interesting for myself. I always try to do something that can translate the joy and the intrigue that I experience when I am working on it. With commercial projects there is more responsibility involved with all the logistics and demands to deal with –but I believe in making images that inspire and tell stories, that touch and intrigue peoples’ minds and hearts. A fascinating image will always stand out and will be recognized –whether it is found in a commercial context or in a freer art context. I have the luck to work with interesting clients who trust me and understand what I am up to.