concept and designby Piroska É.Kiss paintings by Eszter Radák
Where are we? Temporary fairyland, or beauty spot onto the troubles of the world
The exhibition aims at a strong visual shock that attracts visitors right from the entrance and keeps them held in thrall. This visuality emerges as virtual reality created not by technical instruments but by Eszter Radák's artistic world, determined by the athmosphere and significant aesthetic elements of the Hungarian pavilion.
The visitor is completely inundated by the created world covering every segment of space. This painted fairyland has the strong impact of the virtual spaces of interactive computer games, still we can walk through it in reality, and what surrounds us is the work of an artist.
The painted gaps of fairyland are "windows" to various decaying parts of the world, painted by the aesthetics of Secession's cult of beauty.
Where are we?
We are in an interior surrounded by a grovy garden and starry sky. Windows open to the faraway world. The painted scenes of the openings show real situations on different parts of the earth. The space of the virtual forest is real; we can tour it. The beauty we can see shows a world rushing to its own destruction.
What do we know? What do we apprehend? What is true and what is not?
Where are we?
18th Venice Architecture Biennale
Outlook, insight Curatorial and design proposal by Piroska É. Kiss
Joachim Fischer's basic thesis is that architecture is a social medium, a means of communication. How does this means function in the case of a building where the architect, owner, user, and host belong to two countries differing – sometimes greatly – in their social and political systems, ideology, culture, taste, and technical knowledge? The situation is further complicated by the fact that the social and political system, and, consequently, the ideology, cultural policy, viewpoint, and taste have changed multiple times both in the country harboring the building and in the country creating and running it. These changes are manifested in the original condition and the two reconstructions of the Hungarian pavilion of La Biennale di Venezia, reflecting architectural and political values and a certain relation to the past.
The tensions implicit in the above-mentioned facts, as well as the need of social and political changes, have led to alterations in the building itself; and the exhibitions, too, reflect the cultural policy, political pressure or autonomy characterizing the different periods. It is an important issue of contemporary architecture how an emblematic building representing national identity and architectural tradition at an international venue can simultaneously become a contemporary art space; and how it can function as a "social medium, a means of communication". The goal of the exhibition is the complex introduction of the Hungarian pavilion and its exhibitions with a background of the societies creating them and the world surrounding them.
6th Ghetto Biennale
Porte au Prince, Haiti, 2019 Memory of Haitian Revolution by Piroska É.Kiss, Hungary
2021, Ludwig Museum, Budapest
-- exhibition design by Piroska É.Kiss --
World Stage Design 2017
Taipei, Taiwan
stage design for Don Juan by Moliere (directed by Kriszta Székely at Hungarian University of Theatre and Film, 2014)
Chesspoint Charlie
Landart Competition 2017, Ghana
Checkpoint Charlie was the name of the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point during the Cold War, a symbol of a divided world. Chesspoint Charlie is a joyful meeting point of people from different cultures. Every town and village needs a community space. Playing games is a kind of common language, and the best way to build communities.
My work combines a community space, a giant board for chess, moreover a stage for performances. The raised level of the outside checkerboard is surrounded by four long agrillaceous wall-seats. The back-rests, which are painted by traditional Ghanian patterns, save and close a bit this community space.
The basic structures of the giant chess-men is made by the technique of basketwork partly covered by red loam and painted by different traditional Ghanaian patterns. One set of chess-men is painted black-and-red, and the other set black-and-white.
Four tree-trunks are holding the thatched roof against sun and rain. A checkerboard with 64 squares can be used for playing dozens of games. So later, the opportunities can be enriched with sets of other games designed by different artists of different cultures.
An invisible wall is between us, built sometimes by a loveless family, orphanage, misery, war, or just by their closed, hardly understandable, own world, even among the best circumstances.
These kids, on the other side, are Judit Rabóczky’s statues made by wire and sheet-iron. They aren’t sweet, but autonomous, bizarre, temperamental, or gloomy, sometimes wild/barbarous, aggressive, traumatic children. Seeing them, we all face emotions felt long ago. Rabóczky’s statues are the essence of kid-loneliness. Kids on the other side.
Refugees' Tower
Project made for 'Babel' Competition Outsider Art Fair, New York, Metropolitan Pavilon, 2016
My project has benn madefor the Student section of the Prague Quadriennale. The exhibition area issurrounded by a U-shape platform with 24 spaces on its front for photos of the 24 students. Over each photo there is a revolving cylinder - like Tibetien prayer mills - with the works of the student on the pictures. The heart of the inner space is a mandala created from designs of the students.
KLM competition
On the occassion of the 90th anniversary of its foundation, the Dutch airline announced the KofferArt/ SuitcaseArt application. The task was to create an object in a suitcase inspirated by one of the five given cities. First you submitted the project, then the jury choose the 20 best to be realised for the exhibition. Two of my works were among the 20: Koffer Puzzle/ Suitcase Puzzle and the Shanghai Supergun.
SHANGHAI’S SUPERGUN The suitcase in my project is a case for carrying a weapon. The foam rubber lining of the case keeps the pieces of the dismantled weapon fixed. In this case, the three pieces are three modern towers of Shanghai: the financial center, the stock exchange, and the TV. The triplet of finance, commerce, and mass media constitute the supergun.
London, Déjá vu 2009
Budapest and London are full of similar museums, churches, blocks of houses, markets, palm houses, bridges, portals, windows, statues, and so on. Despite characteristic differences between the two countries, we obviousoy share the same culture.