Works by Late Hungarian Artist Ivan Biro are Shown
At Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus in April

Brooklyn, N.Y. — The artworks of a Hungarian artist, who underwent the horrors of a Nazi labor camp during World War II, will be shown at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus.

The exhibition, "Ivan Biro: Dwellings and Monuments," will take place in the Campus’s Salena Gallery from April 5 to April 30, in conjunction with an Honors conference on humanity in crisis. An opening reception will be held on Wednesday, April 7, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Biro (1926-2001) grew up in Budapest, Hungary. In 1944 he was arrested by the Nazis and sent to a forced labor camp in Serbia. He was liberated eight months later. His formal education as an artist included a degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest and study with sculptor Fritz Wotruba in Vienna. Eventually, he emigrated to New York.

Between 1970 and 1986, Biro created a series of wood sculptures and reliefs that dealt abstractly with ideas related to nature and to the construction and destruction of human environments. Beginning with geometric sculptures inspired by shells and helixes, Biro went on to create large-scale freestanding forms based on tombstones, pillars, arches, and simple human dwellings.

In the late 1970s, Biro began producing massive panels, constructed from hundreds of meticulously cut and glued wooden strips. Like the freestanding sculptures, the reliefs suggest both the construction of a solid, sheltering world and its simultaneous destruction as a result of incessant change and motion.

Also from April 5 to April 30, the Campus’s Resnick Gallery will feature travel photographs by Alex Gringaus, Long Island University professor emeritus; reception on Wednesday, April 14, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Gallery hours are from Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday/Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call Gallery Manager Nancy Grove at (718) 488-1198.

Long Island University opened its Brooklyn Campus in 1926, welcoming a diverse population at a time when other major universities enforced quota systems against racial and ethnic minorities. Some 30,000 students currently are enrolled at the university’s three residential and three regional campuses, including more than 11,000 at the Brooklyn Campus. Located at the corner of Flatbush Avenue Extension and DeKalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, the Campus is accessible to all major bus and subway routes and the Long Island Rail Road.