eszter
wolf
portfolio
The body enters the house
Fkse Studio Gallery, Budapest
2014.07.13-18.
Eszter Wolf – Imre Lepsényi – Laura Somogyi – Mónika Zsikla
+
Ildikó Bakos
Renátó Kanalas
Bozó Gábor
Mitsota Dániel
https://vimeo.com/100206437
https://vimeo.com/100449577
https://vimeo.com/100513356
https://vimeo.com/101084110
https://vimeo.com/100590990
https://vimeo.com/100990589
“In FKSE’s (Studio of Young Artists) The body enters the house exhibition and event series the artists create
a chain of associations which presents themselves from the personal, experienced, everyday practical use
of architectural solutions, technologies and structures of buildings that transform the examining urbanist,
architectural historic and social processes points of view of the biennale into personal experiences and lived
through situations. Similarly to the approach of the Chilean kiosk the exhibition the initial point is experience
and it assigns and twists the set structured relations of body and space through the general.
Arriving in the exhibition two dominant elements structure the starting points. On the right the video installation
which recorded the first, opening day of the exhibit, where the “house” (the ground floor of a former “yellow-star
house”) is cleansed by Ildiko Bakos by lashing, before the artists occupy it. The black and white film projected
on the wall is made up of intentionally distorted images, the poetic air that derives from the stateliness of
the female figure, the repetitiveness of the circular movement and snapping sound of the lash is a strong
atmospheric opening element of the exhibit. On the left the loose allocation of some books on a shelf (Tristes
Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss, architectural handbook of Reischl Antal, German grammatical structures)
the journal of the exhibit, and Ildikó Bakos’s Catalogue (published in 1983, also in connection to the exhibit
of the FKSE) forecasts the associative as well as explorative, investigative character. The interplay of such
different texts in question of topic and genre moves on the verge of the mixture of rational structure and
the everyday empirical knowledge. To put it differently the motive for this exhibit is the exploration of those
structures which then determine our relation to body and space as a language and presents itself from our
lives, and transitionally, our thinking. Just as language, these structures create relationships which generate
meaning such that do not derive naturally from their own value, but which produce meaning as they are
being used. Their primary essence is repetitiveness, a patter which on the one hand makes attention numb
and also muffles it, on the other hand, due to the repetitive pattern, it sinks into the mind and offers the
illusion of meaning.”
Exerpt: Tünde Marian Varga: The house of the body BALKON 2014_7, 8
“A few chairs, plaster molds, a shelf with publications, tables on which human organs and the mock-ups of
a block of flats lie in a line, drawings and photo-documents, a few words, budding seeds in coffee grounds.
Seemingly this is all welcoming those who step into the Studio Gallery, but actually there is much more to
it. Questions such as: What is the relationship between us and the built environment? To what extent do we
transform our environment and to what extent does this environment change us connected to it and living in
it? What kind of practices form, are formed in an unknown “strange” space and to what extent can this exhibit
address the audience who want to take part in this process-exhibit in a productive way? These question will
arise in those who saw this exhibition.
I call it exhibition but this is not a pure category. The project itself was created to clear the relationship
between the three artists and the curator and the space of the Studio Gallery, which then is followed by
bringing in new space models to this space. Models that represent our narrowly private living territory and
the experiences we go through in it in a stylized way.
(…) The artists taking part in the Studio Gallery’s program analyzed their relation to their built environment
similarly. Furthermore, they set off a kind of communal creative process in the moment of “moving in.” The
exhibit grew, increased day by day. It built up through supplementing each other in approach as well as
practice. (…) In this case the concept is “just” a starting point, the space of the creative process and the
exhibit are the same.“
Excerpt: György Orbán: House in the body – a chance to build community BALKON 2014_7, 8
ÁÁ
Dazedeny
café á vidya
The base for the 3 projects is the transformation of a truth seeking experiment into a self-revealing
experiment. There is nothing more to this story than the reflexive look upon myself, which is not objective, I
am rummaging in my own forgotten memories, my consciousness, or rather my unconsciousness.
There are 6-8 years of my life which I have no memory of, just images, but these images are connected to
memories I am unable to grip or accept. According to psychology the exploration of such amnesic periods
has a therapeutic effect. I interpreted this exploration in the process as a model of cognition. I used the
analysis of this method and opportunity for the investigation of the artistic activity. (Café á Vidya) As a result
of this experiment I have assessed that I have found nothing. There is nothing there that is tangible, as I am
repulsed by that which can be touched in that space. I do not want to hold anything that I am looking for.
However, there is some information that I can touch, that which I did not look for.
These pieces of information have no conceptual only sensual content. This sensual content is mostly
movement. For example, my own movement with which I uphold the inaccessibility to the unwanted
information. When am looking at a lenticular photo of 3 images, I am doing exactly this: I stroke it with my
look from right to left, left to right, I don’t sweep anything I just touch it lightly and then move on. (ÁÁ) The
main point is that I do not carry out anything truly but only seemingly. As on the film, where I collect my own
pheromones. I act as if I collected them so that I could decipher my body’s hidden or forgotten messages.
But I just act as if I collected them, but not really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3EyBnH_E_Q
I prepare a flask for this perfume, or rather slightly dirty water, I light it through, it becomes a strange glistening
photogram, fragments with a mystical sign. I create the sign for the perfume, which in this story holds the
essence of my enticement and my betrayal. These signs, objects which are formed during the experiment do
not have any meaning yet. However if I know that they are the direct products of the experiment than they
are information after all – I can touch them, I can treat them as real, I can meet them. (DazeDeny)
The title Café á Vidya marks a place which is about sight (vidya) or rather no-sight (ávidya). Café, so it is a
coffee shop. You can drink coffee here, with someone or alone, there are tables, chairs, a rug, a vitrine, the
chime of shiny, silver teaspoons and cake, and you can converse. About anything. About confrontation in
criminology, for example.
The space of Café á Vidya is made up of 3 rooms: a hall and two rooms. One of the two furnished rooms is
light, it is a place for the community and of being together, you can eat and drink in it. It’s a bourgeois interior
with all of its pleasant or unpleasant associations. A table, chairs and a sofa, between them stands a Vitrine
with mirrors, the Memory-holder. In the Memory-holder there are cups, if someone would like a coffee they
choose a cup from this Vitrine. They open it, take the cup out and close it. During this process the light shifts
and a film starts in the third room.
I call it film but it is not, rather a direct projection, an image appears in the camera obscura, in the inner room.
This room is empty and dark, there is only a carpet in it and the missing piece of the other, light room is here,
on the ground, it fills out the space, the tangible space, where we are looking for support for the wait in the
dark. We sit on the carpet and wait and wait in the silence for the gloominess to become interpretable, and
then the ghost of the Vitrine appears, upside down.
Technically the photogram and the camera obscura do not represent direct access. These mirrors and play
of light show something in a way that we can avoid the direct physical impact of sight-scanning. Actually they
obstruct direct sight. The main point here is not that I find something out – I gain something etc. which later
I can use for supporting something else – or legitimize, back someone (myself), attack someone, confront
someone etc., but that the road of formation is uncovered, can be uncovered. I can uncover the personal
formation of facts, notions, objects, which truths build up on that define people’s volume, weight, state/
location and existence.
ÁÁ
classic adventure
Paksi Képtár, Paks
Hungarian University of Fine Arts Doctorate School, Budapest
2011-2012.
dazedeny
Hungarian University of Fine Arts Doctorate School, Budapest
Akvárium, Budapest
2012-2013.
http://youtu.be/Z3EyBnH_E_Q
café á vidya
Labor Gallery, Budapest
2013.05.20-26.
Eszter Wolf – Iván Patrik Kund
+
construction: Sander Bremer
sound: Imre Lepsényi
lights: Tibor Gungl
according to the laws of physics
installation and action
ICA-D, Dunaújváros
2011 Aritmia
The venue is a half open hall, one of its walls is connected to the city through giant glass windows. It is
stretching out into the outside world, by which the exhibition hall with its superiority loses its innocent purity
and objectivity.
I enhance this openness by increasing the practical functions of the communal space: I organized the space
to be amenable to drinking and eating. I prepare food for the guests at the opening, which they can consume
sitting at the tables that constitute the elements of the installation.
For the base material of the installation I chose a highly practical, and in its practicality and history a very
aesthetic piece of furniture: school desks with matching chairs – 11 tables and 22 chairs. I raised the furniture
to an adult height by welding a 40cm thick metal tube to it. I took advantage of the fact that the school desks
refer to community, or even re-create community. The sense of community is enhanced by
the scratches left behind from the past.
I think that the participation of the viewer in the exhibition hall is realized when she/he enters through physical
or communal sensations.
I turned the desks towards the windows in an effort to direct attention outwards, to the city. The connection
between those sitting next to each other is given, while the connection outwards is more conscious.
I organized the inside of the tables as a lightbox: fluorescent lights that light up roots, which you can only see
from the outside. I did not want to make natural roots. It was important, that the materials were truly close to
the earth, ie. Clay, so that I could easily manouever while forming the roots. Specific roots were created for
matching objects.
The objects on the table were chosen based on personal intuition. They are more concepts than objects,
hence the difference in scale.
According to szamata meditation, in the state of absorption, concentrating on objects creates first the clear
reflection of the object, its ecstatic spirituality, later comes the blissful happiness, focused consciousness
and transcended solidity.
There must be a necessary stability in the material world to reach this long lasting state. In order to express the
material-physical support, that stabilizes the spirit, I have now found the root. The efforts in the Dunaújváros
landscaping also use the stabilizing force of roots.
Action Omelette
– with different toppings, prepared personally
A personally prepared meal creates an everyday relationship that has unlimited emotional possibilities.
It creates a true, reversible connection between host and guest. Here, the division of labour is possible
during preparation, specially because the process is simple and visible. The result is a nexus that leads
organically to the interactive use of the artwork. By this, the aim, the encounter is realized through a familiar
terrain without any force.
Not just the whole process is visible and clear but I carry out the preparation of the food and the washing up
as simple and unsophisticated as possible. By this, in a sensual way, I express the thought that I imagine
the reception of my work on a totally voluntary basis preserving the freedom or the consciousness of the
recipient. Also I declare that I do not use manipulation for attracting attention, there is no trick, all is what it
seems, according to the laws of physics.