kissmiklos x Home of Solinfo: YOU&ME
Összetartozás és megoszthatatlan magány

Even in our closest relationships, what is it that remains truly our own? Miklós Kiss’s YOU&ME installation at Home of Solinfo is both a functional piece of furniture and a thought-provoking artwork. Shaped like an ampersand, it seats two people, yet positions them facing in opposite directions. Created for Valentine’s Day, the piece sparked a conversation about loneliness and intimacy, the influence of social media, typography, and the increasingly blurred line between art and design.

Solinfo: The YOU&ME installation explores the tension between togetherness and individual solitude. How did this idea come to you?

Miklós Kiss: I don’t think this is a new phenomenon. It’s a universal human experience. No matter how strong the bond between us, whether it’s between siblings, in a marriage, or in love—somewhere in our own minds we remain alone. It’s not that we’re unwilling to share things; it’s that we simply can’t share everything. There’s always a personal point of view that stays ours, and the other person has theirs too.

Solinfo: How has this changed in recent years, in today’s world?
Kiss Miklós: With the rise of the internet and social media, our world has expanded. We see so much that used to be out of reach. At the same time, it has also shrunk, because we experience all of this from enclosed spaces, sitting in front of our screens. In a strange way, the world has become both bigger and smaller. We’re connected to more people than ever, yet those connections are often more superficial. Online communication, especially chatting is easy to misinterpret, so we try to compensate with symbols and emojis, replacing tone of voice or irony. But that can just as easily create new misunderstandings.

Solinfo: Typography and the use of signs are recurring elements in your work. Why is this visual language so important to you?
Kiss Miklós:  A love of words and characters runs through all my work. Often, you don’t even need full sentences: a single sign or word is enough to capture something about the world. The ampersand is exactly that kind of symbol. It stands for togetherness, yet it also carries that underlying tension: the two sides never fully merge into one.

Solinfo: With YOU&ME, visitors can physically experience this contradiction. Was it important that people could actually sit on it?
Kiss Miklós: Yes. In a way, it’s like a performance anyone can take part in. Two people sit down, they’re together, yet they’re facing different directions. It reminds me of János Pilinszky: “the bed is shared, but the pillow is not.” The closeness is there, but your inner horizon remains separate.

Solinfo: The piece debuted at Home of Solinfo, surrounded by furniture. Why was that context important?
Kiss Miklós:  I placed it there deliberately. If I exhibited it in a gallery, it would automatically become an artwork. Here, it appears as a piece of furniture among other pieces of furniture. That immediately raises the question: is this design or is it art? For me, there’s no sharp boundary. Once an artwork enters an interior, it also becomes part of the interior design—whether we accept that or not.

Solinfo: What would you like people to take away from it?
Kiss Miklós: I don’t have expectations. I simply hope that some people will read the concept and reflect on it. If even one person connects with its depth, it was worth it.

Solinfo: Alongside the installation, some of your smaller objects are also on display at Home of Solinfo. How do they connect to the ideas behind YOU&ME?
Kiss Miklós: Each object is built around a strong concept. The Loved Bear, for example, is about the vulnerability of love: the heart-shaped cutout is a wound that never fully heals. The silk scarf titled Human Race tells the story of human competition. And the tiger blanket preserves the memory of extinct species, while remaining aesthetically beautiful as an object. I’ve always been interested in how playfulness and heavy content can exist side by side

Solinfo: How do you define yourself most accurately?
Kiss Miklós: “Visual artist” is probably the most precise term. I didn’t just want to create individual artworks, I wanted to build a coherent world that functions across different fields, whether it’s installation, object design, or typography.

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