Col Tempo” – the W. project

16. January 2010. – 14. March
MegnyitóOpening: January 15, 2010, 6:00 pm
MegnyitjaRemarks by: Nádas Péter
KurátorCurator: Rényi András
Between June and November 2009, the Hungarian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale featured an unconventional installation by media artist Péter Forgács, entitled Col Tempo – The W. Project. Produced by curator András Rényi, the work employs photos and films originally made during the Second World War for the purposes of Nazi anthropological research, and now kept in the Museum of Natural History, Vienna.

The collection includes thousands of standardized portraits of prisoners of war, guards and Austrians inhabitants, prepared and archived for “scientific” purposes. Forgács’s work, however, does not seek to offer a historical treatment of the material, but demonstrates, through a labyrinthine structure, the many ways in which we can look at a fellow human being.

How does the modern viewer look at, consider, misunderstand or comprehend the same pictures in the different contexts provided by art history, history, contemporary art, biography or psychology? Charged with a dramatic power, the work will confront whoever is willing to read the eyes of these persons with moral issues, the lack of historical recollection and the disturbing experience of prejudiced responses in action.