The Time of an Artwork / The Artwork through Time
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| 2007. Oct. 12 – Nov. 25 |
Exhibited artworks:
Miklós Erdély: Moral Algebra. Solidarity Action (1972). reconstruction
György Jovánovics: Construction Pressing into the Ceiling (1971).
Works using “Construction Pressing into the Ceiling”
Little Warsaw: Cyrill & Method (2005/2007)
Each of the works on exhibit has its own relevance to the chosen topic: how does a work of art relate to a given period – to the time in which it was created, and to the present at any moment thereafter? How does it change in time and through time, and what kind of connection does it find with its audience, and with the changing social and cultural environment in which it has meaning?
György Jovánovics’ “Construction Pressing into the Ceiling” is a well-known installation, often reproduced, even displayed on several occasions – yet it has never appeared in an exhibition space as the artist would have set it up. Furthermore, the photographic works that involve it have never been seen, outside of printed reproductions, by anyone in Hungary (aside from those who took part in the work’s creation).
Little Warsaw’s 2005 piece was an attempt – partly along the lines of the present exhibition – to reconstruct Tamás Szentjóby’s 1972 “Exercise in Exclusion”, a classic and emblematic work of the Hungarian avantgarde, elevating it from its retro-existence and making it visible – but the re-staging was more than just a presentation of the original with the collaboration of the artist; it resulted in an entirely new work of art.
The original of Miklós Erdély’s montage series was probably viewable only in the Foksal Gallery in Poland; its fate thereafter is unknown.
For the Hidden Holocaust exhibition in 2005, art historian Annamária Szoke reassembled for the first time reproductions and still-available preparatory materials. The newly re-constructed work is enriched in the current exhibition by the fruits of modern research, and an expanded context that facilitates understanding.
Each of these works became public 35 years ago, in 1972. Despite the somewhat art-historical methods we have employed in assembling this show roughly a generation later, we intend it not primarily as a retelling of history, but a demonstration of the works’ existence in the present, to the contemporary viewer. It is an attempt to discover their message to the Hungary of the present.
Conception and Curator: Miklós Peternák
Photographs: György Erdély, György Gadányi, Gyula Zaránd
Exhibition Enlargements: György Gadányi
Exhibition Engineer: János Antal
Graphics: Éva Kozma
Translators: Jim Tucker, Zsuzsanna Szegedy-Maszák
Video: Kornél Szilágyi, Csaba Vándor
Special thanks to the Miklós Erdély Foundation, András Gálik, Bálint Havas, György Jovánovics, Annamária Szőke and Tamás StAuby
