Concept behind the works
Experimental Erosion is an ongoing, multidisciplinary art project, conceived, created and founded by Csaba Müllner. The project examines the processes of time, material deterioration and transformation through controlled natural effects, along a unique, authorial methodology.
The works are created on large-scale steel and iron surfaces, which the artist deliberately exposes to extreme environments: submerged under seawater, placed near historic shipwrecks, or left to oxidize in nomadic, outdoor conditions. As a technical cave and deep-sea diver, as well as an extreme athlete, the artist personally places and raises these works to the surface, consistently documenting the entire process. In these first phases, nature initiates the image: salt water, oxygen, pressure and time shape the surface without direct creative control.
The artist does not paint on an existing surface, but uses corrosion itself as an active creative medium. The resulting images are not random, but part of a complex, gesamtkunstwerk-like artistic experiment, where material, environment, process, documentation and narrative come together to form a unified work of art. In this sense, Experimental Erosion does not create a single object, but a complete artistic system.
The second phase begins after the works are brought to the surface. At this time, the works are brought to the studio, which is often a non-traditional space: in many cases, the work continues in a nomadic environment, on a boat or in uninhabited, isolated locations. Here, the artist uses a non-public, personal procedure that has been experimented with over years to direct, stabilize and complete the processes initiated by nature, locking them into a final and unrepeatable form.
Each work is both an object and a documented process. Detailed photo and video documentation, site data and contextual descriptions are attached to the finished works. An inseparable part of the works is a custom-made book, which has its own artistic value. This book contains a hand-written certificate (certification) belonging to the work, documentation proving the on-site origin, a historical or historical description of the created location, and a short story written by the artist on the theme of the given work. The book is not an accompanying material, but a narrative and documentary extension of the visual work.
Experimental Erosion operates on the border between contemporary visual art, performative creation and expedition-based art practice. In the nomadic methodology, creation, travel, documentation and writing merge into a single continuous artistic action. The works question the traditional boundaries of painting, sculpture and environmental art, and interpret erosion not as destruction, but as a creative force.
