A mysterious hand writes unknown words on the wall. The prophet deciphers them: “You have been weighed, and found wanting.” The king falls.¹ An angel’s finger barely touches a warrior’s hip, and it jumps from its socket – yet its owner receives a victor’s name.² Man is defeated / man is raised. Reality-check.

The medium is the material itself: glossy black enamel paint,³ which moves out from its support surface and, cross-linking, draws out the narrative. At the center of this spiderweb-like weave, a religious image is stuck: a cheap aluminium copy of a Theotokos, evoking the riza-casing of a Byzantine icon. The object and the paint are subjected to a trial by pressure:⁴ the same pointing gesture forces the material through the empty silhouettes of the figures. The result is a dense, root-like paint outgrowth – “manually 3D-printed” – which, at the point of exit, still takes on the outline of the holy pair (religious framing), only to cluster into a depersonalized, organic form. On the floor it finally lies sprawled out as spilled mass, off its leash (the medium is free).

Lőrinc Borsos, Weighed Found Wanting, 2021, enamel paint, textile, aluminium riza, polistirol, chain, 200 x 150 x 150 cm, photo: Barnabás neogrády-Kiss.

Lőrinc Borsos, Weighed Found Wanting, 2021, (detail), enamel paint, textile, aluminium riza, polistirol, chain, 200 x 150 x 150 cm, photo: photo: Barnabás neogrády-Kiss.