Stalking Utopia

Tracking the City

26. January 2008. – 29. February
MegnyitóOpening: January 25, 2008, 6:00 pm
The exhibition presents works by 17 international artists who were involved in workshops and exhibitions in Eisenhüttenstadt (D) and in Dunaújváros (H) in 2007. Their artistic investigations concern spatial concepts for ideal urban and social environments and aim to explore the social and cultural potentials of the two cities. While in the case of Eisenhüttenstadt the preparatory work and the series of events were centred in the Aktivist, the abandoned building of a former restaurant, the participants of the Dunaújváros workshop spread around the city’s public spaces.

The title of the exhibition refers to the somewhat curious urge and interest that brings the artists to planned cities. What may the artist be looking for in Eisenhüttenstadt and what may his or her research lead to in this environment preserving past times. The photographer Thomas Neumann, who had already worked in different planned cities throughout Europe, invited his colleagues to this East-German town. In Dunaújváros the situation was a little bit different: the participants of the workshop directed in October 2007 were invited by local artist Tamás Kaszás. Some of them had already visited Dunaújváros before, either on the occasion of the Intercultural Orinetation sightseeing tours, or at own initiative. The present exhibition is an occasion for the international participants to gather together, to face each other‘s working methods and to prepare The Congress of the Futurologues, an event including further international participants planned for September 2008.

The exhibited works – photos, installations and projects – on the one hand reflect on the specificities and unknown faces of the cities. On the other hand, they revolve around fictive and real encounters in an “ideal” urban space, relying both on documentation and imagination.