Six months ago, Ágnes Hardi presented her series Blue Hotel in the exhibition space of the Textile Factory, inspired by Chris Isaak’s song of the same name, released in 1986. The current exhibition is a continuation of this project, or, if you will, its “second part.”
There is indeed something cinematic about the mood of the works, with the velvet curtain bringing to mind the world of David Lynch, who passed away last year. The blue velvet is a direct reference to Blue Velvet, also from 1986, but the works also reflect the ‘subconscious spaces’ that appear in the director’s films. In addition to the visual world of the films, their psychological aspects were also decisive for the artist: an imaginary hotel remains at the center of the exhibition, but in his darker, more mystical works compared to the first half of the series, he began to explore the theme of voyeurism.
In the seemingly endless, uniform spaces of hotels, rooms line the corridors in a row, with only the room numbers providing a point of reference for those staying there. The constant turnover of guests counterbalances this monotony: different stories unfold in these uniform rooms for a few days or weeks at a time.
Then the cleaning staff comes and removes the “traces”; we don’t know who stayed here before us, what happened to them here, or what feelings they had when they arrived and departed. All this lends a kind of mystery to these rooms, which never reveal anything about their current occupants, always taking care to maintain the hotel’s sterile, untouched appearance.
The exhibited works emphasize the mystique and intimacy of these ‘soulless’ spaces through the billowing drapes of the curtains, the crumpled bedspreads, and the filtered light. We know that something has happened or is happening in a given space, but we are not given any real insight. The motif of curtains appears in several works, serving as a multifaceted symbol: a transition between different spaces/states, separating the outside from the inside, the conscious from the subconscious. It hides, yet we still have the opportunity to peek behind it.
Hardi’s works can be interpreted as such transitional spaces, but also as projections of our inner world. Walking through the spaces of Blue Hotel, the artist invites the viewer to face themselves: we can be the observers who want to see the secret that is being hidden, or the residents who want to hide it.