Kapsule v podlahe vychádza z nájdeného detailu zo synagógy, z mozaiky liatej pôvodnej umelo kamennej podlahy, červená a sivá podlaha je rozdelená bielou a čiernou kamennou mozaikou. Z tejto mozaiky som vychádzala. Navrhujem pokračovanie v ornamente, kde každý štvorček, ktorý sa objaví v betóne pred a okolo synagógy by symbolizovaljedného darcu. Mali by sme si vytvoriť kovové kapsule, kde by sme mohli umiestniť meno a prípadne odkaz každého darcu. Darcovia by si mohli sami umiestniť odkaz, alebo aj my/vy by sme/stemohli umiestniť podľa dohody. Myslím si že sa môžme aj o tom uvažovať, že by sa nachádzali vnútri budovy. Vrch kapsúl by mala rozmer mozaík. Viem si predstaviť kamenne alebo kovové vrchy, aj s monogramom darcov alebo bez. O tom by som si ešte ďalej uvažovala. Vytvárala by sa štruktúra štvorčekov s možnosťou neobmedzeného rastu počtu.
Pri tejto variante, stratíme konotáciu holokaustu, neupozorňujeme na minulosť, ani na nebezpečenstvo návratu minulosti. Zase na druhej strane vytvárame sympatickú horizontálnu demokratickú štruktúru pamiatku. V tomto prípade mi vadí neutrálnosť diela, a zase pozitívum je pre mňa tá neagresívna prítomnosť a dostupnejšie financovanie.
Column, Žilina, 2013 Unrealised public space project for Kunsthalle Žilina
(SK)
Kúpte nesmrteľnosť!
Pred synagógou v Žiline som uvažovala o postavení mobilného pamätníka, stĺpa, na ktorej by boli napísané/zaznamenované mená darcov/podporiteľov vzniku Kunsthalle v Žiline.
Stľp:
Priemer: 65 cm
Výška: 1500 cm
Písmo/riadok: 3 cm + 0,8 cm medzera
Materiál: matný nerez
Mená: gravírované
Výsúvací, pohyblivý kovový stĺp
Stľp by rástol podľa rastu darcov. Na začiatku by bol vsunutý do zeme v rúre a postupne by bol vysunutý priblížne dva krát ročne. Keby bolo 2000 darcov, stľp by mal výšku 15 m. Keby darcov bolo ešte viacej, mohol by vzniknúť nový stĺp.
Stĺp by bol umiestnený pred synagógou. Bol by viditelný ešte bez mien. Mená by mali byť gravírované po vysunutí..
Mýšlienka vzniku pamätníka, stĺpa bola inšpirovaná (ne)pamätníkom proti fašizmu od Jochana Gerza v Hamburgu v Nemecku, ktorý v roku 1986 postavil 12 m vysoký stĺp pôdorysom štvorca. Stĺp bol pokrytý s oľovom, a ľudia mohli na povrch písať svoje odkazy do výšky, kam sa dostali. Keď pás už bol plne popísané, pustili do zeme. Osemkrát bol stĺp zasúvaný, kým zmyzol v roku 1993, vznikol neviditeľný monument.
V prípade žilinského stĺpu práve vznikne reciprok monumentu v Hamburgu pred synagógou, ktorá bude rásť práve dôsledkom spolupráce, kooperácie občanov pre kultúrny skutok – výstavno/kulturný priestor. Darovaním/podporou stĺp bude rásť zo zeme, zviditeľňuje spoločné úsilie v prospech kultúry. S tým, že bude umiestnená pred synagógou a reflektuje Gerzov stĺp otvorý priestor pre uvažovanie o našej spoločnej minulosti, histórie a pomáha pochopiť, spoznať a vypracovať traumy 20. storočia.
Mená darcov budú napísané na stĺp celom tvare mena a priezviska. Spoločná zbierka bude viditeľná aj v tejto forme.
“Németh envisioned a multiple element installation for the large wooden floor of the UMass main gallery space. As a consequence, Levitt and nearly 50 university and related community volunteers, over several months, created 1,000 handmade ceramic harpoons for the artist, each about 12 inches in length, and these became the materials for the installation. The dark harpoons are arranged on the golden oak floor, dispersed yet all pointing toward the entrance door, like arrows or missiles or a school of crazed fish, yielding “the feeling of threat and admiration” intended by the artist. One can walk among the curved harpoons, and visitors are encouraged to do so to gain different perspectives. However the overall perceptual effect from the gallery door is of an amazingly robust, activated, convex form made up of the multitude of ceramic harpoons, an unstoppable motion. A beautiful installation emerges from the sheer dramatic flow of the handmade objects.”
“After I was invited by Viera Levitt to exhibit at University Art Gallery, I started to study New Bedford and its history, since as a site specific art artist my work derives from a site’s historical and cultural historical context, I found the moment when Lewis Temple invented the ‘toggle harpoon’ to be symbolically a crucial moment for the city, one that influenced its success and economic growth through the rise of the whaling industry. I was also impressed by the shape and handmade feel of this object in the collection of the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Since CVPA has a Ceramics Department, I was excited about the idea of involving its students and faculty in this project. I am very thankful to the gallery, the ceramics department, and all the volunteers who helped with the installation.”
Ilona Németh
In cooperation with: University Art Gallery, UMass Dartmouth, New Bedford, USA
A touring exhibition of one of the most important representatives of contemporary art in the Central and Eastern European region was at all its sites (Budapest, Košice, Brno) at home and, at the same time, a guest; in all the sites it was a statement made from both the inside and the outside, corresponding to the transnational position of the artist. Ilona Nemeth is a Slovak artist of Hungarian nationality, whose artistic career began in Czechoslovakia, who regularly exhibits in Slovakia as well as in the Czech Republic, and who is also considered part of the Hungarian art scene.
The exhibition was intended to be a retrospective one presented in the four Visegrad countries. The curator of the touring exhibition was supposed to be the Slovak art historian Vladimir Beskid and was to be presented in Trnava, Budapest, Brno, and in Poznań. Finally, however, it took place in Budapest (actually lacking an exhibition), in Košice and in Brno, and it was also represented with one artwork at the biennial in Poznań. Between the initial concept of the touring exhibition in 2011 and its realization in 2011–12, the cultural map of the region had fundamentally changed. Beskid was removed for political reasons, which made the planned exhibition in Trnava impossible, and finally Košice became the Slovak site of the exhibition. Politically motivated changes also occurred in the leadership of Műcsarnok, resulting in the replacement of the designated curator, and under the influence of the turbulent events, even the concept of the exhibition was changed. The exhibition was to be opened at a time when in Hungary – in the middle of an intense right-wing turn at the time – a “scandal around philosophers” broke out, i.e. a political discrediting campaign directed against leftist intellectuals. Since the central piece of the exhibition, presenting feminists artworks and works of art conceived from a female point of view, was supposed to be an interview with Agnes Heller, and since one of the main targets of the “scandal” was herself (and apparently her intellectual 10 attitudes), the artist had to deal with the dilemma of whether to risk exposing her work within the prevailing political atmosphere and stirring up passions, which could result in her exhibition acquiring – in the over-politicized and dangerously polarized public life in Hungary – a completely different meaning or, whether it would be better to change the strategy. Ilona Nemeth opted for a “retreat” and, instead of a comprehensive retrospective exhibition she presented video recordings depicting her own reflections as well as her professional and personal dilemma in the lobby of the closed exhibition space of the Museum.
The original concept of the exhibition was actually realized in Košice and Brno. Although the impact of the Hungarian local context beyond the borders of Hungary was no longer as powerful, it was replaced by the local Slovak context, since the exhibition took place in the former County House of Košice – a historical place where the Beneš Decrees were declared, and in which a meeting room was established for Mečiar’s commissariat. In this context, the exhibition was twisted into something which evoked nationalisms, historical events and the intense political context of regional culture. That was not foreign to the artist, who, after her body politics in 1990, increasingly began leaning towards political art and creating socially conscious works. As the exhibitions toured the specified region, their context and interpretation changed accordingly. The particular variants of the exhibition, in essence, embodied the process of culturaltranslation.
The aim of this publication is to present the milestones of this tour, the particular exhibitions, their different sites and variants along with the changing political and cultural contexts, and to uncover the process of cultural translation by means of parallel visual and textual narratives. The visual scenario allows the reader to make a virtual tour through the venues of the exhibitions and the related documents capturing the response in the local media converging on the local reception of the exhibition.
The exhibition and the artist’s artwork are analyzed – corresponding to Ilona Nemeth’s transnational operation – by an international team of experts in the form of feature articles intertwined with chronological narratives. A comprehensive look at the history of individual exhibitions, their political background, the changing context and the diverse receptions is presented by Gabor Hushegyi, who has, from the very beginning, followed and analyzed the artist’s career, also because he himself – just like the artist – moves around in several countries as if at home. The Serbian art historian living in Berlin, curator of the Gender Check exhibition, Bojana Pejić starts out with the philosophy of Agnes Heller and discusses the metaphor of freedom, while analyzing Ilona Nemeth’s public art works and projects focusing on social issues. Slovak art historian Daniel Gruň explores, through the aesthetics of the absence and failure, the current possibilities of institutional critique. And I, as a counterpoint to the comprehensive viewpoint of Hushegyi, focus on a single element of the shows, the Grandstand, which accompanies the individual exhibitions, and through its close reading I examine the genealogy of the female position from the 19th century to the present, from the female point of view.
We hope that this publication will be a counterweight to the national fragmentation and ethnic nationalism stirred by official politics, and will point out the mutual cultural connectedness while, at the same time, introducing the history, wandering and metamorphosis of an exhibition.
Budapest – New York, September 2013.
Foreword by Edit András
Published by the Kalligram (Bratislava), December 2013. in 2013. First edition, 352 pages.
Published in English, Hungarian and Slovak.
Publisher László Szigeti.
Production editor Zsolt Beke.
Proof-readers: Edit András, Zsolt Beke, Lucia Gregorová, Karol Chmel.
Graphic design Pavlína Morháčová.
Printed by i+i print, Bratislava.
Buy the book online at: kalligram.sk.
80 x 30,5 x 30,5 cm 30 postcards in a metal postcard stand Photos by the artist Postcard photos by Gábor & Ádám Hushegyi
“The billowy history of Hungary since the political transformation in the early 90’s includes the relationship among Hungarians and Hungarians living abroad which is rather quiet troubled and unsettled. The mother country feels its own historical and moral obligation to interfere into the life of the communities beyond the borders which brings some positive but at the same time some dysfunctional consequences. One of those dysfunctions is some kind of an export of the actual Hungarian regime and political ideology into the transborder medium, if you like an infection by the Hungarian political life’s disease. A nice example is the statueexport, the fact that the copies of the actual cherishing hungarian exalted personages have been increased outside of the country meanwhile the opposite action is marginal. The project is trying to vary this asymmetric situation. Thirty statues are being figuratively returned to the sender. The sculptures had ben settled during the time between 1995 and 2013 in Slovakia with the support of Hungary. This collection is not making a comprehensive documentation but it gives a mirror to this export activity.”
The Fog, 2013
September 12 and September 27, 2013
Námestie Slobody / Freedom Square, Bratislava Performance
Organised by Verejný podstavec / Public Pedestal, Bratislava In cooperation with Martin Piaček Realized within project Zero Point Production by Petra Báliková Photos by Marian Ravasz
Video production by Cukru Director of photography and editing by Martina Slováková Photos by Miroslav Bača, Martin Chlpík, Jakub Lazarčík, Dušan Vančo Sound by Blažej Vidlička Sound design by Dušan Vančo Special effects by František Šuli Rakický, Gabriela Macková Production management by Petra Báliková, Martin Piaček Supported by Ministerstva kultúry SR
Realized within In the framework of the protest project “Outer Space – Stand Out Every Week” (web) Organised by Eszter Kozma, József Mélyi, Márton Pacsika Photos by Zsuzsanna Simon
Realized within In the framework of the protest project “Outer Space – Stand Out Every Week” (web) Organised by Eszter Kozma, József Mélyi, Márton Pacsika Photos by Zsuzsanna Simon
Performance location: X-Apartments, Košice, Slovakia In cooperation with Goethe Institut Bratislava In cooperation with Károly Tóth Photos by Anton Baša
Szelmenc / Veľké Slemence / Селменцi, 2013 Installation, dimensions variable Slide show, photographs, sounds and candy
“Ilona Németh [sa] pokúša zachytiť širšie súvislosti historicko-politických a kultúrnych zmien prostredníctvom konkrétnych príbehov a osobných histórií hlavných aktérov jej diel.
Výstava rešpektuje priestorové rozdelenie na tri základné celky, v rámci ktorých Németh predstavuje tri projekty zo svojej najaktuálnejšej tvorby. Projekt Veľké Slemence/Hranica vznikol na základe rozhovorov s pamätníkmi a príbuznými rodín, ktoré žili v dedine Slemence, v roku 1946 násilne rozdelenej Červenou armádou na Veľké, pripojené k vtedajšiemu Československu, a Malé Slemence, patriace k Ukrajine. Video je koncipované ako záznam rozhovorov s príslušníkmi jednej rodiny, ktorá sa stala obeťou tohto nezmyselného geopolitického aktu. Prostredníctvom spomienok, fotografických albumov, smutných spovedí ťažkého života, frustrácie z bezmocnosti zmeniť daný status quo Németh poukazuje na to, ako veľká história vplýva na osud jednotlivca.”
Košice, 2013 Public art
535 x 788 cm Mirrors, metal construction, hardboard Location: Námestie Osloboditeľov, Košice, Slovakia Architect: Marián Ravasz Photos by the artist
