FLOWERS

ICA Dunaújváros, Hungary, 1997–98

In cooperation with Dunaújváros City Hall and the Evangelical Church

Closed-circuit urban intervention focusing the topic of religion and its current standing in public discourse in Hungarian i.e. Eastern European societies.

Contextual closed-circuit video installation symbolically connects state administration, communal gallery and church in order to reflect on the relation between those spaces and institutions. The inspiration for the work lay in the back then changing relationship between the church and the state, which underwent radical modifications after 1989 in all former communist/socialist Eastern European countries. Three public institutions were involved in this contextual installation: Dunaújváros City Hall, the Institute of Contemporary Art-Dunaújváros, and the local Evangelical Church.

A video camera was set up to monitor the altar area in the recently built Evangelical Church in the new part of town. The scene from the altar was transmitted to the town center: to the reception desk of the City Hall and to the exhibition space in the ICA. At both locations, that typical item of socialist décor a vase of red carnations was placed next to the monitor repeating the ready-made situation from the church. The gallery installation also included video documentation showing the complete interior of the church.

CREDITS
The work was commissioned in the frame of the ‘Who by Fire’ exhibition at the Institute for Contemporary Art - ICA Dunaújváros, Hungary. Curators: János Szoboszlai, Lívia Páldi. Cooperation Partners: Dunaújváros City Hall, Evangelical Church Dunaújváros. Photos: Kristina Leko.

GENRE&FORMATS 
Project: urban intervention; closed circuit video installation. Artwork/s and artifacts: video and object installation.

 

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