Past, Continuous-Contemporary Reflections on the Cultural Legacy of Socialism
The exhibition focuses on the relationship between the official culture of the socialist era and the contemporary artworks reflecting upon that. The organisers attempted to pose the questions as to how this rather despised but robust legacy could be treated, what to do with the ideologically contaminated cultural heritage of this period, and how to regard the artworks of the socialist realist ’50s and those of the Kádár era both stemming from similar ideas but representing dissimilar ways of expression.
It is quite controversial how we relate to the socialist decades due to its recency directly involving our present, e.g. by a multitude of still open cases like the name change of streets and squares, the non-disclosure of the list of informants and state agents, and political efforts to hold people responsible for the terror (Lex Biszku). The attitudes towards the era alternate from nostalgia and embellishment to extreme refusal.
Paradoxically, the compulsive denial and reconstruction of certain things are both working in a space and context still characterized by the legacy of the same times. Parallel trends determine the mechanisms governing our response to the socialist art when we fail to classify scarcely any buildings constructed in the period as monuments, and when we keep valuable artworks in museum collections in perfect invisibility.
The main features of the exhibition consist of the diverse attitudes towards these issues: conscious abuse of symbols transmitting visual experience across generations, allusions to the cult of replication, exposure of works against suppression, and mindful strategies for processing the memory. The exhibit comprises creations of critical approach, concept ideas using visual aspects only as reference, and works processing personal biographical concerns. The invited artists coming from a wide range of generations and countries display broadly divergent perspectives.
The exhibition takes place in Fészek Artists’ Club, founded in 1901, which was transformed during the Kádár regime in a way that created a peculiar symbiosis of the bourgeois milieu and socialist modernism. Fészek played a special role at this time by working as a transitional zone on the borders of different cultural policies.
- … up to new struggle, to new work, to new fights calls the party now, …00:00:09.500
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- … the party together with its followers to declare our humanity …00:00:15.300
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- … being brought forth by labor, intellect serves us …00:00:20.600
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- The idea of the exhibition entitled “Past, Continuous” congealed during00:00:45.210
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- a research seminar held at the University of Fine Arts. Our point of departure was to examine the00:00:52.500
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- design language of visual culture of socialist realism how it comes down to contemporary art00:01:00.500
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- or what are the motivations that move contemporary artists to deal with the past,00:01:07.000
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- with the visual legacy of the past in such ways. It was clear for us from the beginning that we00:01:13.500
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- don’t wish to show only Hungarian creators but would also focus on international artists.00:01:19.900
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- The choice of a site preoccupied us also and by no coincidence was Fészek Klub getting picked00:01:27.100
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- The club was established in 1901, meaning that it’s survived the bloody thunderstorms of00:01:33.350
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- the last century and was active even during the fifties and sixties the harshest years of00:01:40.300
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- socialism. Next to the show itself, we organise accompanying programs: movie screenings,00:01:46.600
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- roundtable discussions and tonight at the opening we will listen to a 15 minute00:01:53.000
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- musical performance a reinterpretation of workers songs by Soharóza Choir.00:01:59.000
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- … our humanity serves, intellect, intellect serves us …00:02:11.000
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- … secrets get revealed in heaven and on earth infinity bows …00:02:15.250
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- Artists participating in the exhibition, from the youngest to the older, speaking about00:02:23.900
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- a generation aged from twenty to above fifty, process their visual legacy for personal or00:02:28.990
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- family involvement. Another important aspect is irony, ironic, even sardonic tone that00:02:38.500
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- addresses the cult of the monument, the forced cult of erecting monuments that typifies all00:02:45.500
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- power regimes leaving for contemporaries and descendents to enjoy the fruits of.00:03:00.300
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- There is also the concept of salvaging archeological finds presenting the forgotten00:03:09.360
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- heritage of bygones, the almost obsessed consignation to oblivion of that which we wish00:03:15.750
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- to forget, based on the assumption that if we don’t think about it, than it doesn’t exist.00:03:21.000
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- I think a number of pieces in the show go against this by salvaging finds for the visitors00:03:26.400
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- as well as making them face the past.00:03:30.000
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- In our exhibition we were thinking in thematic sections and I’d like to highlight one00:03:33.000
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- that revolves around how powers that deal with public space00:03:38.200
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- how they transform as well as how we remember the way of transforming00:03:42.770
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- public space during socialism. Explicitly I’d point to two works connected to and00:03:49.990
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- thematizing this. One of them happens to be behind me by Marcell Esterhazy.00:03:55.530
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- Funnily, the piece is based on a found object given that the original was found lying in front00:04:01.210
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- of a darts club in Dusseldorf and Marcell had it recast from bronze after replacing the darts00:04:06.320
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- arrow in its hand with a hammer. Perhaps another visually significant topos is the broken00:04:17.570
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- and missing leg of the sculpture that carries strong associations with, say, the topplings00:04:26.070
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- of Stalin statues or actions of statue topplings that regularly accompanies regime changes.00:04:35.970
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- The other piece by Balázs Antal and László Hatházy is also based on a found situation and00:04:42.170
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- was made for a yearly exhibit of The Studio of Young Artists' Association in Dunaújváros.00:04:51.000
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- Its title is Allegorymagnet and what actually happened was that the artists made a00:04:57.170
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- site specific exercise by investigating with clay a socialist muralia on the façade of a00:05:05.000
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- primary school. It was a sculptural group depicting young primary school boys.00:05:11.970
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- The molds were taken of hands touching each other and the plaster of paris casts were kept in00:05:18.000
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- a fridge conserving a moment of the past. Another group of works is also present in the00:05:24.000
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- gallery space that is the “abstract bloc” that deals with the devices of pressure in cultural00:05:29.070
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- politics in an indirect way. I’d like talk more in detail about another group that uses, misuses00:05:40.770
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- and abuses symbols of very direct propaganda art such as the five-pointed red star or the00:05:46.970
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- globe or the figure of a worker. A video work by Arthur Ẑmijewski is also being screened00:05:55.000
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- about a sculpture workshop in which he invites contemporary artists to a steel factory who00:06:02.610
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- present how they would shape the figure of a contemporary worker and proceed to do the00:06:09.990
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- shaping with the help of the workers while all through we hear the feed-back on the00:06:16.010
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- sculptures from the factory workers. “Rainbow” by Gyula Várnai consists of hundred if not00:06:31.190
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- thousands medals/ badges or symbols of the movement. It obviously transubstantiates these00:06:38.290
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- badges and simultaneously points to the fact that the system wasn’t only kept functioning by00:06:45.490
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- an oppressive upper crust but by the co-operation of everyman…00:06:52.500