• 2024-05-10
• Tour de Hongrie

Tour de Hongrie sculpture in Kazincbarcika

Tour de Hongrie got off to a spectacular start in Kazincbarcika, where a new permanent public sculpture of Gábor Miklós Szőke was officially unveiled. 

The sculpture depicts a cyclist speeding past and expresses the momentum of cycling. It has been constructed from more than sixteen thousand individual stainless steel sections, and, besides the sport itself, the bike draws parallels to both the digital and the analogue world, through its composition and arrangement: each of the thousands of “sculptural pixels” is handmade and the overhanging sections are arranged to suggest the form of a long exposure photograph. 

The placement and scale of the sculpture was an integral part of the artistic concept, with its dynamism arising from the curving of each individual element in space as the cyclist leans heavily into the bend. The stainless-steel sculpture is a permanent public artwork, created from car-painting technology, with a colourful, rather than monochrome appearance. The blurred metallic colours meet on the sculpture, with the colours of the Hungarian national team – the national tricolor – appearing on the rider’s jersey. In the evening lights, these metallic elements create exciting details that combine to glitter on the roundabout.

“I started designing the sculpture about a year ago and, in January this year, my team and I embarked on physically realising the sculpture”, stated Gábor Miklós Szőke.  I was inspired by one of my favourite artistic periods, Italian Futurism, and it's interesting that the first Tour de Hongrie was launched in this period 99 years ago. I wanted to represent a frozen moment of movement in the form of the cyclist speeding by. The sculpture can be found atop a huge roundabout on the main road 26, Kazincbarcika to Miskolc, where there is a huge amount of through traffic day and night. I designed the statue specifically for the dimensions of the roundabout, resulting in a statue 4 metres high and 8 metres long. In addition to the colours and the metallic elements that float by, the sense of movement is further enhanced the fact that I have tilted the sculpture at 64 degrees in the edge of the roundabout.” -said Gabor M Szoke

This is not the sculptor’s first sport-related work. His giant works, which have become the defining images of a number of sports facilities, can be found all around Hungary and all around the world. Among his best-known Hungarian sculpture is the Fradi eagle, and, outside of Hungary, the Falcon sculpture for the Atlanta Falcons NFL team stands as the largest bird sculpture in the world. Additionally, his statue of Colossus is located in front of the X-bionics Sphere equestrian complex in Slovakia, also a world record in Europe, and one of his latest creations is the Two-Headed Eagle sculpture in front of the AEK Athens stadium.

The sculpture was commissioned by the Kazincbarcika Council. After Budapest (where the statues of the Wonder Stag, Lions of the Sky, The Rumble, Honvéd Lion, Builders, Fradi Eagle, among others can be found), in Kazincbarcika has the largest number of the artist's sculptures in the country. Alongside Chinese Dragon, Unicorn, Colourful Lion, the Tour de Hongrie statue is now also seen every day by the people of Kazincbarcika and everyone who drives along the main road 26 towards Miskolc.