Private Protest

25. January 2008. – 22. February
MegnyitóOpening: January 24, 2008, 7:00 pm
MegnyitjaRemarks by: Baglyas Erika
KurátorCurator: Stepanovic Tijana
The point of departure for the exhibition is Ágnes Eperjesi’s action which took place in Buenos Aires in 2007. The artist went on a solitary protest in the street with a large placard made of scrap wood, bearing the inscription “PROTESTA”. Deviating from everyday local practice, however, she would not take a stand for political demands, but for – or, perhaps, against – her own most private concerns. She made her own helplessness public property, collecting signatures and trying to recruit masses to support her. In other words, she appropriated the well-established modus operandi of political protest for her own ends.

The artist continues the action here in Budapest:

“Please, imagine yourself in my place, raising my placard of protest above your head. Imagine that you depart, holding it. Depart not out into the street, among people, but inward: into your soul. Into complete solitude. Submerge, until things start making sense, and it becomes clear why you are holding that placard; what it is that you disapprove of, that you are protesting against, perhaps unwillingly; where this helpless rage inside you comes from; what it is that hurts, that you believe to be unalterable. Thus will you perceive the inscription on your placard. And if you can read what you see on your placard, please, write it down for me.”

Ágnes Eperjesi’s Private Protest explores the most intimate, straining and (apparently) unalterable problems of the individual. Exhibited besides the photographic documentation of the Buenos Aires action is an installation comprised of placard inscriptions submitted by the Hungarian public, which collection is open for further supplementation by visitors, who can drop their own inscriptions into the “ballot box” on display at the gallery.

At 11:00 on Thursday, 14 February 2008, Ágnes Eperjesi’s protest around Kálvin tér, departing from Labor.