Hammers

Under the circumstances of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when young artists in Timișoara were trying to connect with the rhythm of European art, pushing the conventional boundaries of official art, Peter Jecza's artistic laboratory briefly experienced an experimental temptation.

Even though he did not align himself with any of the experimental movements active in Timișoara at the time, the artist adopted approaches that responded to the neoconstructivist tendencies of the era. The need for formal liberation led the sculptor to turn to pop art assemblages, incorporating ready-made, industrially produced objects. However, he applied to these a structural discipline of his own, reinvesting the objects with new aesthetic meanings, detached from their functional purposes.

The work Hammers (1973) is one such example, along with others such as Object I, Object II (1973), Amplitude (1971), Serialism (1972), Wheels (1973), Energies (1973). The presence of these works in avant-garde exhibitions of the 1970s marks the artist’s exploration in the search for new forms of artistic expression. These also carried a subversive critical note, brought on by the theme itself, at a time when food was becoming merely a dreamed, improbable reality.
(Sorina Jecza)